Yamagata: A final thought

22/10/2009 by McAllister.

It was great to hang-out once again in Yamagata with Naoki and Yoshie, to cook veggie food round at their place. Each day I indulged in my favourite tofu dressed in a gorgeous sesame sauce. It is the one Japanese dish I will always miss.

Now I am cooking a tofu omelette for breakfast for Atsushi and Mako in Tokyo on my way home. They both helped me along the bumpy difficult 4 year project, and tomorrow I talk at the University where Toshiko works. Toshiko has been a strong supporter of me also. Oh dear there are so many people I have troubled making this film, so many people have tried keep my spirits high when I faced some of the darkest loneliest moments of my life lost in Japan.

To be with them all celebrating the awards for a successful film now is truly great and almost worth the pain. As I said when I picked up the award ‘It makes me almost love Japan. But not quite’.

Its funny to be sat with Atsushi, my Japanese film-school friend who started helping me on my difficult journey here in Tokyo 4 years ago. At times he could see no point and would tell me to give up and go home. ‘You will never find what you are looking for here Sean, go home, he would say, ‘Stop killing yourself’ So it is such a pleasure to be sat with him 4 years on drinking next to two trophies. I remember sitting in the same seat on many occasions lost here in Tokyo.

I’m happy we had a post screening party for Naoki and his co-workers from the post-office in Yamagata also. They never understood my filming at the time but at the party they were full of praise.  I’m pleased we also bumped into mushroom man. He pulled up on his post office bike during his delivery work. I love his smile. It reminds me of Naoki.

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