Sidonie in japan/From open sources
In Sidonie in Japan, a widowed French writer, played by Isabelle Huppert, travels to Osaka, Japan, to connect with her Japanese readers in a series of events. On her arrival, she is met by her publisher, Kenzo (played by Tsuyoshi Ihara), with whom a slow-burning romance begins.
But Sidonie’s journey in Japan takes a seemingly weird turn as she begins to see the ghost of her late husband, Antoine, who died in a car accident. She first comes across him at baggage claim, then in the shower, and later in a bookstore during one of her signings. It must be said that August Diehl, in the role of a friendly ghost with a hearty appetite, is far more charming and warm than he was as Bulgakov’s Woland in Michael Lockshin’s rendition of The Master and Margarita.
In this film, Élise Girard, the director of Sidonie in Japan, casts Japan as a central character in the film, unlike her previous film Belleville-Tokyo. In that film, Tokyo remained off-screen, only serving as the setting for a film festival that marked a point of separation in the lives of its cinephile protagonists. While some people today try to understand Japan through the epic series Shogun, in my view, Élise Girard has created an equally meaningful guide using far more modest material.
Sidonie in Japan captures, with remarkable precision, the sensations of someone visiting Japan for the first time, showcasing details that bridge the ghostly and the magical—the drive to and from the airport, the hotel walls, empty highways, an owl on a branch, the red seats in the Kyoto subway, and a kiss under the blooming cherry blossoms. Each frame feels like a haiku, capturing the elusive essence of Japan.
‘I feel like I’m on another planet; everything is different, and I’m different,’ says Isabelle Huppert’s character. Anyone who has been to that Japanese ‘planet’ would likely agree that this seemingly clichéd statement holds a pure, undeniable truth.
When Sidonie finally confesses to the publisher that she would like to make love with him and hears, in response, that in Japan, one doesn’t talk about such things but simply acts, this remark about local customs brings to mind another French writer, Roland Barthes.1
1Roland Barthes (1915–80) was a famous French philosopher and structuralist known for his precise, insightful reflections on everything from fashion theory to Japan. In his book Empire of Signs, Barthes writes, ‘This happens because the body there exists, opens up, acts, gives itself without hysteria, without narcissism, yielding to a pure erotic movement, though one that is subtly concealed. It’s not the voice (which we equate with “personal rights” — but what can it express? our soul, pure and sincere? our sincerity? our prestige?), but the whole body (eyes, smile, a lock of hair, gesture, clothing) that speaks to you with a kind of murmur.’
Another quote from Barthes, offering essential insight into this film and Japan as a whole, is a bit lengthy, but Europeans traditionally need many words to describe Japan’s simplicity and fleeting moments:
If Japanese bouquets, objects, trees, flowers, faces, gardens, texts, things, and manners seem diminished to us (since our mythology celebrates what is large, spacious, vast, open), it’s not due to their size, but because every object or gesture, even one that is entirely free and alive, seems inscribed. Miniature is defined not by size but by a particular precision with which a thing delineates, contains, and completes itself. In this precision, there is nothing of logic or morality: the purity of a thing is achieved not by puritanism (untaintedness, sincerity, objectivity) but by a kind of hallucinatory supplement . . . or by a cut that removes any aura of meaning from the object and eliminates from its presence, its place in the world, any evasion. Yet this frame remains invisible: the Japanese object is neither outlined nor embellished; it is not structured or drawn with bold contours meant to be ‘filled in’ with color, shadow, or stroke. Around it, there is nothing—only an empty space that frames it (which, to our eyes, compresses and diminishes it).
This true cinephile film follows the venerable tradition of depicting ghosts, from Joseph Mankiewicz's classic The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) to the popular Ghost (1990) with Patrick Swayze. In this story, Sidonie’s Japanese lover’s family perished in Hiroshima, a nod to Alain Resnais's Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959), which is about a brief romance between a Japanese architect and a French actress in the post-war city.
Ukiyo-e woodblock print by Katsushika Hokusai/Wikimedia Commons
However, the true mystery of Sidonie in Japan lies not in the film’s cinematic references but in its embodiment of Shinto beliefs that sound through the story. Kenzo explains to Sidonie that in Japan, ghosts are everywhere, and if one appears among the living, it means there’s something to be said between them. Barthes also writes about a ‘ghostly aura that shapes the Japanese object’. In this film, the ghost’s presence makes the lovers’ connection tangible and defined as they cling to each other in a taxi with the invisible third presence nearby.
Japanese mythology is rich with ghostly imagery (an idea echoed by one of Japan’s important experimental rock bands named Ghost), from living umbrellas to bells that grow tails. The ghost of a deceased person is called a yūrei, particularly if they died a violent death, like Sidonie’s husband. A ghost is not something supernatural or foreign; it is a natural part of the world, like a family member, and is fully integrated into the realm of the living. Ancient beliefs often depicted ghosts without legs and with eyes on their elbows. However, modern tradition offers a more conventional portrayal as seen in Diehl's character in this film. While traditionally spirits might appear in road tunnels, here, the ghost manifests in an airport. He seeks no revenge and essentially plays the role of a slightly otherworldly ex.
Katsushika Hokusai. A woman ghost appeared from a well. 1831/Wikimedia Commons
In his book The Folk Religion of Japan, the researcher Miyake Hitoshi writes about how a Japanese person traditionally seeks protection from various deities, who, in turn, offer their guardianship to those who revere them. Those who are deprived of this attention turn into either natural monsters or human ghosts. Thus, the boundary between revered deities and rejected ghosts is fluid and shifting, mirroring Sidonie’s own identity. When asked, ‘Are you a writer?’, she answers, ‘Yes and no’, demonstrating a sense of being caught between worlds, roles, and realities.
Soon, the ghost of her husband fades before her eyes, growing increasingly insubstantial. However, her living, drinking, indigenous lover convinces Sidonie that this is normal and that her desire to see him is simply disappearing. To move forward with one's life, one must let go of the dead. There is undeniably an element of betrayal and deception here, but Huppert excels at portraying, with a mere glance, the ‘absence of reason and morality’. As for the deception, it is a prominent theme in this film, as we can tell, for instance, from this dialogue:
‘It’s like we’re in Italy, on Capri.’
‘The Japanese are exceptional masters of forgery.’