路

MICHI

Drama

OVA

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
4
RELEASE
January 1, 2008
LENGTH
13 min

DESCRIPTION

The My Road series - Scarlet Road (2002), White Road (2003), Indigo Road (2006), and the most recent instalment Lemon Road (2008) - can be read as meditations on loss and mourning. These poetic films tell their story through motif, character expression, music and montage and require repeated viewing for one to absorb the subtly evoked layers of meaning.

(Source: Midnight Eye)

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REVIEWS

Ceannard
80/100
The Notes of Mourning

Michi, or the Long Road

Spoilers for Michi throughout!

Michi – otherwise known as the My Road Series – is a collection of stop-motion short films written, directed, and animated by Tomoyasu Murata. I was long interested in this series; being a big fan of stop-motion and puppetry, as well as abstract, meditative pieces, made Michi quite attractive to me.

Now that I have seen it, I can say it did not disappoint. With a series of this nature, it is not so easy to describe with words alone, with it being more a montage of moments made to elicit some feeling in the viewer. Whatever that feeling may be is variable, but if I could describe the work in a few words: quiet, pensive, nostalgic. I say quiet not necessarily because of its lack of dialogue, but because while it is clearly an exploration of grief and loss, and the depression thereafter, it does not make a show of its tragedy. The story is there, displayed before your eyes, but there is no drama and no self-indulgent sentimentality. There is only the road.

The story is structured as a journey, an odyssey of sorts, on which our protagonist travels by foot, train, and boat through a world bleak and desolate: a world made manifest by his own mental state. He also ventures into lands of memory and dream, through which we get the most intimate looks at his character.

Small Hands, Brief Lives;

One of the first major details we become privy to is that the protagonist is a pianist. In a faded memory spurred by a lone girl playing, we see his daughter on the piano. It is a rather beautiful song, but before she can turn to her father and smile, we find her on her back – her face obscured by a white sheet. Murata conveys so much with so little: the way his fingers twitch and move at her side, as if reciting from memory the song she would play, the song of her ghost; the fact we never see her face, the thought of which likely too painful to bear for him; the way the film shifts from reality to dream to memory, taking us into his mind so intimately without the need for words.

Once out of the memory, he decides to play the piano for the lone girl, which is something we can tell he has not done in a long time given his prompt closing of the fallboard when first seeing it. It is through this that they find safe passage from the surreal dreamscape, which I find to be a lovely bit of storytelling. In finding the courage to finally play once more, he has perhaps healed a part of himself, however small it may be. I watched the series with a friend and we remarked light-heartedly early on at the size of his hands. I mean, they’re BIG – disproportionately so – it was almost comical. Though I feel there could be a greater purpose to that. There is quite a lot of focus drawn to his hands in the first instalment particularly, and this can serve to the fact he’s a pianist, of course, but there is a certain shot after he plays the piano and the camera stays locked on his hands; and then, the girl places her own upon his, and hers are the picture of innocence. Such small, delicate things, probably not unlike his daughter’s, and I feel it really conveys the fragility of life and childhood; that adults bear responsibility, and that children everywhere should be protected.

The use of music, while not particularly elaborate, is very well-done. Music is memory and memory is life; through songs we can be transported to worlds both foreign and innate, and while they may not always be happy worlds, they are still worth visiting. For life can always be found, even in the buried recesses of the mind, or the transitory moments of a dream. How else could it be that upon exiting the dream, he would find a red flower he earlier refused from the girl?

The Seed of Life;

I mentioned the flower just now, and that is one of the primary motifs of the series. While it shows itself to us in the first episode, its true origins lie in the protagonist’s childhood. A lost puppy discovered by him and a friend in the woods; a puppy he decided to shelter and nurture; a puppy which quickly and unceremoniously lost its life in a snowstorm. Loss once more. Death. His friend appears to leave town with her family following the burial, leaving him alone with this burden. I do think there is a parallel to be found between a dog dying under his care and his daughter dying much later on. Both are beings he wanted to nourish and care for, and while we are not told the cause for his daughter’s death, both beings perished far before their time.

In revisiting his childhood home (which triggered this memory in the first place) he is forced to confront another fragment of his life, another loss – another loss he likely blames himself for. It is grief, and it is guilt. The way the film is directed you almost find yourself inside of his mind, imagining the thoughts swirling through it: ‘What if I had just taken better care of it? Maybe if I hadn’t left it alone in the barn, it would still be alive? I could’ve done better. I could’ve done more. It’s my fault. It’s my fault. It’s my fault.’ You don’t hear any of that, of course. You don’t hear any words at all from any lips nor any thoughts at all from any heads. But still, it almost feels like you do. And I think it is a testament to Murata’s artistic ability that these films with no verbal language whatsoever feel so utterly communicative. They speak through visual language: through looks and angles; through light and shadow; through the falling of rain or snow. They speak without needing to at all. All this is helped of course through music and sound, with every step, every creak, every gust of wind, every minute sound feeling intentional and resonant.

While the dog died, the protagonist (upon finding him initially) did find a seed, a seed that stays with him even now. Throughout the film we see flowers in various stages of life – on the windowsill, in the forest, and even upon the dog’s grave. There is life to be found everywhere, even in the midst of death. In life, you will always find death, yes, but vice versa in death you can also find life… somewhere.

A Flower that Blooms In Light of Darkness;

So far, we have seen two fragments of his past, two losses that have left him stricken with grief. The third episode (which may be my favourite of the lot) is the final piece of the puzzle, the last fragment of his past that we intrude upon. There is some really nice visual stuff going on in this instalment. Mirror images. Another faded memory – the figure of a woman I can only assume is his wife, sweeping the floor of their apartment; and him, his own figure weary and lonesome, sweeping the floor of what appears as some derelict building. The contrast at play is lovely: in the memory of her, there is real light – illuminating and radiant – the apartment is clean and kept; the atmosphere, while quiet and perhaps even a tad melancholy, is peaceful and serene. There is real, palpable warmth in the image. Whereas, in the forlorn reality he inhabits, there is no such warmth, no such tranquillity. His halls are marked in dreary greys, his floors littered in filth and dirt and grime – a sullen inversion of those bygone days. And yet, he sweeps all the same. He even takes to adamantly scrubbing the stained innards of a toilet, which clearly sees no use. It just appears… pointless? For what purpose is he undertaking these tasks? To what end?

You could draw a couple interpretations of this. You could say, from a purely metaphorical point of view, that this decrepit building he is cleaning is a visual manifestation of his mind. It is messy, and dark, and in disrepair. And perhaps his cleaning is a form of self-therapy, trying to clean out the bowels of his mind in the wake of such profound loss. I don’t particularly mind this perspective, and I don’t even necessarily disagree with it. I think with the series’ visual language thus far, it is not at all out of the question. But as well as that, I seem to find something else to it – something more literal, something that really completes the story.

There is a not-small degree of focus on chairs in this episode, there is even a shot that displays nothing but chairs. Just that. Chairs. A dozen or more chairs all lined up, most of them different. On the floor can be seen discarded beer bottles, as well as an ash tray complete with cigarette butts. There is also a particular chair that stands out, that being a bright red armchair. To my mind, I see all this as a representation of his idleness. I do not think it a coincidence that we see his wife not only keeping the apartment in good condition but also preparing food and doing generally all of the housekeeping; and in the same sequence, we see him sitting in a ruined bar by himself, drinking – the only familiar sight of any comfort being another lone piano, as if that and by extension his daughter were the only things that brought him happiness. The death of his daughter struck him so completely that he simply gave up. And one cannot really blame him for that, sure, but what of his wife? There is clear sadness to be seen in the way she continues to maintain the house, as if she is simply programmed to do it; in the way she wistfully looks out the window, a red flower upon its sill; in the way she slowly places down only two plates at the table. What of her grief? What of her sorrow? The way he disassociates, watching himself clean, and the prolonged shot of him simply staring at his own reflection, tells me that he too understands his wrongs. His seemingly futile cleaning was an attempt to make amends, to show his willingness to change. If his mind is a prison, then this is his labour, and his penitence.

In the final act of the episode, the music picks up as a steady drum invades the sound. It builds and builds as he walks down the street. It builds almost to a crescendo as he looks up the stairs, so close now – so close to their apartment, so close to the table she so carefully made. And the music lowers once more, slowing to a pensive crawl as he stands before the door. One more step. One more step to see her again. She approaches the door herself, both their arms reaching out as if to greet each other, as if fate is pushing them both toward this moment. And then… silence… A darkness almost impossibly dark, before the opening door offers some light. And what lies beyond it? Nothing. It is their apartment, yes, but there is no life left within its walls. It is dirty, the table and floors covered in trash and empty bottles. It is frankly a devastating sight, and such a gut-punch made so effective by the music and direction. It is perhaps my favourite individual sequence in the entire series.

Episodes one through three were a journey he took to find himself again after his daughter died and wife left. A transformative journey through time; a walk through dream and recollection; an almost bitterly melancholic memory lane. Though, even in the dull dark of the ruined apartment, through the window can be seen that same red flower, sheathed in the light of the starry sky. Still it stands, even now.

The End of the Road…?

And now, the final instalment, Lemon Road. To my mind, this episode serves more as an epilogue to the prior three. His reflective journey is at its end, and all that’s left is life itself. Such a plain and mundane thing, really. We can infer just from the state of his apartment that he has made good on the lessons learned. While it is somewhat empty, it is at least clean and maintained. No longer does he sit amongst his throne of idleness, surrounded by subjects of trash. He gets up every morning, and drives past children playing under a billboard to a library (which may perhaps also operate as a job centre or rehab centre of sorts) and when that is done, he drives back home and basks in the familiar comfort of television and alcohol. Well, it’s an improvement. He doesn’t appear to be completely wasting his life away anymore at least.

Murata makes a point of showcasing just how repetitive and monotonous his daily life now is, showing that same cycle again and again and again. And the shows, or perhaps advertisements, that play on the TV are erratic and bizarre. Maybe he’s hardly watching, and in the haze of mild intoxication and dissociation it all just stretches and blurs into a distorted array of unexplainable sight and sound.

In this state of conscious absence, a ringtone blares out – almost gratingly loud and harsh – but before he can see who it is, the telephone is sucked away and pulled into a hole in the ground. Around the hole are various people (including the aforementioned kids under the billboard) and furniture and many trees. It’s hard to make out exactly who all the people are, though in the centre, upon a bench, I believe we can see him and his wife. The hole however is gluttonous and begins pulling everyone and everything into its vacuum, and when all else is gone, his wife too is dragged into the pit, leaving him completely alone. I’d read this as an internal look at himself and his life. To himself, he is a black hole, a cursed thing – pulling in everyone and everything that gets too close and ejecting them into some distant place he can never reach. He has lost everyone after all. He even lost himself for a time, and while he is doing better there’s doubtless pieces of himself that can never be returned or replaced. He then turns to find a giant lemon… yeah, which spits out a note, after which he awakes from the dream. The usage of lemons in this episode, I suppose you could say, refers to the sour and bitter life he is sentenced to live, but also finding the strength to keep pushing on in spite of the circumstances, and trying to make the most of what is left. When life gives you lemons and all.

He drives to the library yet again the next day, but the children are no longer playing. When he returns he enters a phone booth with a heap of change and dials the number scrawled on the note. I personally believe this to be the number of his wife, especially given what the third episode told us. He has done his best to get his life together, and maybe, just maybe, he can get her back as well. The phone rings, and rings, and rings, and rings, and rings again. Five long rings, before he decides to hang up. She never did answer, or maybe he stopped the call before she could. Maybe he still doesn’t forgive himself, doesn’t think himself worthy of even hearing her voice. It is a sad state of affairs, but that’s just life. That is the road.

The next day, the sun shines bright, the children are back and pretty white butterflies flutter through the air. He makes a cup of tea, and goes onto his balcony to bask in the light next to a vase of red flowers.

Conclusion

So that is Michi. For anyone who has read to this point, I thank you. I tried to honour brevity when I could but it was deceptively difficult when discussing a story of this ilk. I enjoyed the films enough when I initially watched them, but looking at them retroactively and really absorbing them through the process of writing has made them stand so much taller in my mind. I suppose I am also just a sucker for this type of media in general, though.

Murata is very good at communicating ideas through feeling; in that much or most of the story can be understood purely through the feelings evoked. Love, loss, guilt and regret, wistful longing and the suffocating hold of melancholy; our wayfaring pianist has tackled it all and found a clearing – a small, but no less significant, bit of peace. But the road? It may never end. Not truly.
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