Seihoukusei 西北西

There are heavy movies and there are depressingly heavy movies! And this one, dear Ladies and Gentlemen, is one depressingly heavy movie!

No, there are no deaths or violence here but to me those are not the worst kind, not even close! It’s movies like this one, this movie, that took me four whole days to finish because with each passing day I was just not ready enough for the weight that this movie carried with it!

Turns out actually that it is kind of old, well, 2015 kind of old! It has been out since then and once again I am late to the party but maybe it was a good thing because I don’t think I would have received it quite the same way like I might have five years ago!

This movie is heavy!! Worse still when you have a stake in the weight of it all and by that I mean if you relate to the characters of the story! And dear Readers do I connect with these characters!!

There are times when I see the world around me, the world we live in and think to myself, what is the point of it all? Why should I have to live in this kind of place! Why do I have to put up with these kinds of people! Why should a world like this be allowed to exist!!

Sometime there is darkness right ahead that just makes you question everything!

Watching this movie, if you have been there, you will feel for these characters. You will be awed by their strength to go on! Seriously, I am still surprised there were no deaths in this movie! All three of our girls here, Kei, Ai and Naima, all three leads such painful lives that…seriously, how did Ai survive!!

To put the story short, Kei and Ai and in love but as you would expect, everything else is against them! Their love is basically a secret and when it does come out, to Ai’s parents, the reaction is the one expected! Meanwhile Naima is a girl from Iran and she is a University student in Tokyo, looking to get a job in Japan after graduation.

I don’t even have to tell you what came of those plans after graduation!

As you can surmise, the movie is dealing with both issues of sexuality and race and if my shouting hasn’t made it clear yet, there is no good in this conversation!

Interestingly enough, we do get a GOOD END but it is a win-lose situation because while we got one GOOD END, on the other hand we also got a BAD END. What is worse is that watching the movie that BAD END is the expected ending which really make me loath this world even more!

The GOOD END is of course that Ai and Kei worked through their relationship troubles and ended up deciding to live their life together (even if the outside forces were still against them) but on the other hand, Naima couldn’t overcome the racial problem so she had to leave Japan in the end! I mean how could she?! No single person can. And unlike Kei and Ai who can still love each other in secret, Naima had no such option and girl, she tried, oh did she try, but at every turn the roads were blocked!

But that’s not even all of the suffering Naima had to go through!

You see, when she meets Kei, who is like the link between the other two, Kei and Ai were still in that phase where the outside problems affected their own feelings and they had constant fights and trust issues and it was actually with the help of Naima that they worked those out and truly begun to love one another truthfully.

But you see, despite her nurture, meaning that of course she was homophobic, in the beginning, Naima ended up falling in love with Kei in the time they spent together. This change was also reflected in other elements of the story! While Naima helped Kei with her relationship with Ai, Kei helped Naima with her nurtured biases and her falling for Kei was on of these changes, the other being willing to try something different. Like for example, she absolutely did not eat local foods she di not like but when she cooked that lovely dinner for Kei, Kei who while she at first spat out the Persian dessert that Naima made for her, she was willing to try it until she got used to it.

Back to Naima’s love for Kei, while it was also possible that she did not act upon it because of her views and beliefs, it was mainly because of Ai. Ai went to her and basically begged her to not take Kei away from her so her denying her feelings was because of two reasons. She saw what Ai and Kei meant to each other, how they basically needed one another to survive in this world! It might also have been because Naima knew that she would have to go back to Iran but still, even if it was that, she could have given in at least once when Kei tried to kiss her!

But she did not and for that Naima won an infinite amount of life points from me and I know that her one God that she always prays to will give her a reward for her purity and choose to believe that her life would not be of misery with how great of a person she is!

It was really painful seeing slowly fall in love with Kei but being held back by both her beliefs and not wanting to hurt other people!

God, I am crying again!

This movie is freakin heavy people and I only recommend it to those with strong hearts or those who don’t care!

God

Ja

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