Watching Kon Ichikawa's Makioka Sisters (known in Japanese as 細雪 Sasameyuki) for my Japanese film studies module brought me back to certain issues of life.
The film is basically about 4 sisters from a traditional merchant family, living in the pre-Pacific War period when the influence of the family business has slowly faded out.
Adhering to their traditions, they treated marriage very seriously, and the whole agenda throughout the entire film was to marry off the 3rd daughter Yukiko through matchmaking.
What made it more urgent was that our dear 4th sister Taeko had to wait for her elder sister to get married before she could do so.
The 2 unmarried youngest sisters had meanwhile been living with the 2nd elder sister Sachiko, inevitably posing a constant temptation for their brother in law Teinosuke.
You know... this whole one sided "imaginary sexual tension" that guys like you and I so freely indulge in.
And it was the ending scene that spoke to me the most. Yukiko had finally made her choice of Mr Right after a long search by her sisters. Brother-in-law Teinosuke is seen drinking alone in a room, muttering "she's getting married" to a puzzled waitress, tearing as he gazed at the snowfall.
Doesn't it happen to us from time to time, this equally imaginary sense of loss? The drop-dead gorgeous colleague from the next department who just got attached? The emotionally jarring bus ride home thinking about that girl you saw for the first time at that event and would never see again? The very chio classmate of yours who just isn't your type?
And then it would fade away. With time, with new preoccupations, with new doors opened.
Guys. I think we're all the same.
Anyway, another thing that amazed me was Yukiko's persistence in, erm, turning down matchmakings?
So that when the right one comes by, she was ready.
I respect that spirit, though not forgetting that it's probably something anyone can do when your siblings are bringing prospective mates to your doorstep by the month.
Still, it awakened the question in me about waiting for the right one.
But it remains a question.
