A Last Note 1995

Yoko Morimoto, an aged but still active widowed actress, takes a quiet break from rehearsals and the intense Tokyo heat to rest at her rural summer residence. Her longtime housemaid, Toyoko Yanagawa, breaks the news that the 83-year-old gardener has died by suicide, leaving behind a stark note. On his self-made coffin, the old man placed a heavy river stone to seal the lid.

it’s over

Later, Mr. Ushiguni, who is away on a trip with his wife, Tomie Ushiguni, an old friend and former theatre troupe colleague of Yoko, telephones the house and is invited to join them. Tomie Ushiguni is senile and has memory lapses, yet with Yoko’s patience she can still recite passages from Chekhov’s plays, The Seagull and Three Sisters, which they performed together many years ago.

The next day, an armed man breaks into the house and demands food. Tomie Ushiguni attempts to seize his weapon, and soon the intruder is arrested by the police. The intruder turns out to be a mentally ill criminal who had attacked residents of an old people’s home, driven mad by their incessant croquet games. Tomie earns a reward for helping to capture the escapee, but when the group goes to lunch at an exclusive restaurant, they discover the envelope contains only 10,000 yen instead of the 300,000 yen they had hoped for.

After the Ushigunis depart, Toyoko Yanagawa confesses to Yoko that she had an affair with Yoko’s husband, Saburo Morimoto, 22 years ago, and that Saburo is the father of Toyoko’s daughter, Akemi. Yoko’s initial anger gives way to a wary reconciliation, and the two women begin to mend their rift.

They later attend the traditional “tentative marriage” ceremony of Akemi and Daigoro, watching stylized dances that echo the couple’s evolving relationship and the town’s rites. The ceremony brings a mix of humor, longing, and social ritual, set against the heat and quiet rhythms of rural life.

The next morning, newspaper journalist Naoko Yazawa arrives at Yoko’s house to report that Tomie and her husband have committed shinjū in the ocean near Naoetsu, Niigata. Yoko sees that Tomie and her husband were on their final journey, and Tomie used their visit as a final farewell. Together with Naoko, Yoko and Toyoko retrace their last steps. Back at her residence, Yoko packs a suitcase to return to Tokyo, instructing Toyoko Yanagawa to keep the gardener’s stone for her coffin in case she dies. After Yoko leaves, Toyoko tosses the stone into the river, letting go of the weight of memory and the garden’s quiet gravity.