Ceremony

After decades of single-minded dedication to his work, a worker with an elite career course at a major bank is transferred or rather relegated to a subsidiary company, where he finds himself at a loos as he reaches retirement age.

Keiko Tsuruoka’s film is at once traditional and contemporary: it gently mixes present-day gender and sexuality politics with the old-fashioned Japanese domestic drama. Traditional lacquerwork kitchenware is the Aoki family’s legacy, handed down to patriarch Seishiro (Kaoru Kobayashi) by his now-ailing father (Masayuki Suzuki). Seishiro expects to pass it in turn to his son Yu (Ryota Bando), but Yu has no interest in the craft—quite unlike daughter Miyako (Mayu Hotta), who loves it dearly. The stage is set for conflict, as established cultural traditions collide with modern mores…

After the death of his grandfather, Koen Shirakawa (Atsushi Ito) quits his job at a bookstore and goes to a temple to become a monk.