I am writing now with a big smile on my facee, having watched the last of a trio of unrelated films from Japan. The first was Drive My Car, which I saw at as part of a curated series for film enthusiasts in my town. The movie was about love, about acting, about betrayal, and somehow pushing through to create work. It was about Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, a play, like most of Chekhov’s works, provides no easy answers, life sits side by side with struggle, yet a certain peace can be maintained, even if questions remain unanswered. An actor is asked to direct a play by a foundation that also requires him to have a driver. A young woman is recommended as chauffeur, and the actor grudgingly accepts. One trick he uses on driving is listening to his wife read play scripts out loud, so he can fill in his speaking parts, a way, of rehearsal that lets him drive and pass the time. Having a voyeur to his method creates an interesting friction, as both people attend to both their aesthetic outlook on life, as well as their own inherent loneliness. Drive My Car ends ( you can’t help filling in the Beatles’ lyrics) , like all three of the films I saw, on a deeply satisfying note. Looking back, the ending was perfect. No spoilers here, just see it.

The second film I saw was a sixteen-part drama, but done by a director who had never created a romance before. Filmed at a number of strikingly locations, and jumping back and forth in time, First Love is about just that— a love story that begins in youth, and continues to unfold in many circumstances, including the 2011 Tohuku Earthquake/ Tsunami in Japan. It is as much a film about meeting as it about parting. The beauty of the film is exquisite, in not only the scenes of traffic rotaries and snowstorms, but also in the beauty of the actors’ faces as they express a myriad of expressions, including the difficult task of conveying just how delicious a certain dish that is consumed can be. The plot concerns a would be flight-attendant and pilot who fall in love as grade-school students and cross paths repeatedly as they work as a cab-driver and security-guard in the present day. But the film is less about plot, than about the moments of being in their lives.

And the last to leave me with a lingering smile is Hold My Hand at Twilight, which is also about pursuing one’s art, and making difficult sacrifices along the way. Life is never all fun, one character tells another; one has to enjoy and fight for life all in the same day. So we follow the intertwined stories of an aspiring fashion designer and a musical composer, pursuing their dreams, as life keeps throwing tiny darts their way. Cupid throws darts as well, but they try their best to dodge them. While this is a frothy, stylish series full of pop-colors an music, and skirts more serious dilemmas as it brushes broad strokes of somewhat unbelievable plot, it also gives us a glimpse of making choices guided by aesthetics. Remember the moments, not the days, is a theme that develops in this story.

I have seen Japanese films since I was a teenager attending my high school Japan Program, where a small group of us would trek into the city to see often wildly inappropriate films at Japan House. To this day, Snow Country remains one of my favorite novels, and my fascination with the minimalist aesthetics of beauty I saw in the books I read, as well as the music, and films I saw remain with me to this day. We were so young, teenagers going with our Social Studies teacher, loaded up in his station wagon, trekking across the bridge to see Noh theater, and watch tea ceremonies at Japan House on 47th Street; and eating at Gasho steakhouse in Woodbury, NY, or at Stella D’Oro Restaurant which had tables scattered with cookies in the hall. Nowadays, I watch Korean, Chinese, and Japanese drama on tv, and I find I am buying more chopsticks, eating noodles, and thinking more and more about visiting.