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再見溪谷
緑豊かな桂川渓谷で起こった、幼児殺害事件。実母の立花里美が容疑者に浮かぶや、全国の好奇の視線が、人気ない市営住宅に注がれた。そんな中、現場取材を続ける週刊誌記者の渡辺は、里美の隣家に妻とふたりで暮らす尾崎俊介に、集団レイプの加害者の過去があることをつかみ、事件は新たな闇へと開かれた。呪わしい過去が結んだ男女の罪と償いを通して、極限の愛を問う渾身の傑作長編。
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
11 people want to read
About the author
Shūichi Yoshida
66 books162 followersShūichi Yoshida (吉田 修一) was born in Nagasaki, and studied Business Administration at Hosei University. He won the Bungakukai Prize for New Writers in 1997 for his story "Saigo no Musuko", and the Akutagawa Prize in 2002 (the fifth time he'd been nominated for the prize) for "Park Life". In 2002 he also won the Yamamoto Prize for Parade, and for winning both literary and popular prizes Yoshida was seen as a crossover writer, like Amy Yamada or Masahiko Shimada. In 2003 he wrote lyrics for the song "Great Escape" on Tomoyasu Hotei's album Doberman. His 2007 novel Villain won the Osaragi Jiro Prize and the Mainichi Publishing Culture Award, and was recently adapted into an award-winning 2010 film by Lee Sang-il.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 1, 2017
The review is of 'The Ravine of Goodbye' - Oct. 2, 2016, shared here because the following speaks more of the story than the DVD:
Spoiler Alert: the film is not about the dead child or his mother.
This is not an easy film to watch, especially if you know the story. It is incredibly sad, disturbing and - for the lack of a better word - uplifting, hopeful, empowering even, in its own degenerate way. It explores and questions many things: society, its attitude towards rape victims / survivors and rapists; the claustrophobic reality of lack of acceptance of a raped person as opposed to the rapists; the nature of a victim and aggressor and that of weakness; where atonement ends and acceptance begins; media coverage of a crime; freedom to choose and love; unfulfilled lives and what-ifs; regrets and new beginnings. Should one even dare?
It is even more difficult to give the film the benefit of the doubt given the salacious twist: the victim is shacking up with one of her 4 rapists. She hasn’t forgiven him but likes him, so much so that she leaves him in the end, because they are happy and they shouldn’t be happy together.
It would be very easy to judge the film as exploitative and demeaning to abuse victims if one simply read the synopsis and I can only shudder at the hundreds of filmed rapes in South Asian cinema that seem to fulfill some kind of male fantasy of complete testosterone-laden BDSM control over a woman. The very idea of a raped woman using one of the rapists for sex or healing would send Pakistani/ Indian filmmakers (and many audience-members) into a Jackson Pollock-painting tizzy. Not to mention the frequent absurd solution offered in rape cases in reel and real life: that the victim marry the rapist. But Omori visualizes the controversial relationship in an uncompromising, antagonistic, meaningful way. As unrealistic as the story may be, you believe the characters and their choices.
Every story has a beginning, middle and end. Since the film begins in the present, it essentially starts the story from the middle. I don’t think anyone can watch this movie a second time, but for those who do, nothing from the start can feel or look the same way again.
Fifteen years ago, Natsumi went out for a night of fun with a girlfriend Kakano. They meet up with 4 fellow high-schoolers who are part of the baseball team. They hang out in the locker room. The star pitcher Ozaki flirts with Natsumi while the other boys try to get silly with Kakano. The boys are all drunk. Kakano leaves before things get out of hand, ugly. The three boys turn towards Natsumi. At first, Ozaki brushes them off but then leads the gang-rape. Kakano sees this but does nothing. The immediate consequence of the rape is that the baseball playing days of all four are over. Natsumi’s parents get divorced. But both Natsumi and Ozaki move on: she gets a job and so does he. She presumably falls in love and gets engaged to a co-worker - an engagement that ends when his parents find out about her past. The co-worker tells the office that she entangled him through lies and fraud. She gets another job and gets married to someone else. Meanwhile, Ozaki has a very good job in a security firm courtesy another one of the gang-rapists. He has no significant other (It is not clear in the film - but it seems like he is looking at apartments with a girlfriend or may be he's just showing the place to a prospective client). Natsumi miscarries a baby and is in hospital. This is where one of the gang-rapists (a businessman’s unapologetic, arrogant son) sees her and laughs about her and the rape over dinner with friends - a group comprising of women and men, who laugh with him, and a grave stricken Ozaki, who doesn’t. He goes to see her in the hospital. She is shocked. He sends her guilt-ridden letters. She ignores them. She tells her husband about her past. Instead of being kind or concerned, the husband turns into a jealous, violent man who snoops in the wife’s purse for ‘evidence’ of affairs with other men and accuses her of liking group sex. She keeps ending up in the hospital because of the husband. Ozaki keeps sending letters. She tries to kill herself twice. She fails. She leaves the husband and calls Ozaki.
At this point, it is clear that neither of them have been able to move on from the rape. Natsumi is miserable and Ozaki is in pain/ shame. Ozaki does whatever she tells him to do. He accepts Natsumi’s hate and anger as his deliverance. The film literally takes a journey into the unknown when Natsumi keeps walking and Ozaki keeps following her, staying by her side. They travel together, eat together and sleep (separately) in hotels though they are not really together. She hates him and wants him to suffer. He wants to do anything to atone. When he is about to run out of money he tells her to decide what to do with it. They have already left everything and everyone they knew behind. She picks a vacant loft for them to live in - she makes it clear that the place will stay the way it is - no comfort or joy can be in it - and so shall they. Be miserable together. Both take up menial work: he goes to a factory; she, to a convenience store. Of course, they are either attracted to each other or sex is a release from all the pain or that’s the way she exercises control over him. Either way, the film starts with the sex and in the beginning when you know nothing of the past, it just seems like two people who are really into each other, enjoying a make out session, a couple with a healthy sex life - by the end, you won’t be so sure. Many feminists would brush it off as dribble, but it’s there, it’s raw and fierce, and Natsumi is calling the shots nine times out of ten.
Six months go by and a matricide next door throws attention on them and their unusual relationship. It seems like the end of a thing and the beginning of something else.
One of the many uncomfortable questions that the film raises is should Natsumi have a real open relationship with Ozaki at the end of the ‘purgatory’. In the film, he comes across as a man trying to do the right thing. He is not a bad person, is intensely mild-mannered and likes children. He gives her unconditional respect and passion. She has more control over her life with him around than with the fiance-husband combo. Neither can undo the past: he did rape her, it did destroy her relationships; but they cannot deny the present either: they care for each other. Is it wrong? She thinks so, and leaves. He does not, and vows to find her.
Offensively beautiful, well-made, with great performances.
Spoiler Alert: the film is not about the dead child or his mother.
This is not an easy film to watch, especially if you know the story. It is incredibly sad, disturbing and - for the lack of a better word - uplifting, hopeful, empowering even, in its own degenerate way. It explores and questions many things: society, its attitude towards rape victims / survivors and rapists; the claustrophobic reality of lack of acceptance of a raped person as opposed to the rapists; the nature of a victim and aggressor and that of weakness; where atonement ends and acceptance begins; media coverage of a crime; freedom to choose and love; unfulfilled lives and what-ifs; regrets and new beginnings. Should one even dare?
It is even more difficult to give the film the benefit of the doubt given the salacious twist: the victim is shacking up with one of her 4 rapists. She hasn’t forgiven him but likes him, so much so that she leaves him in the end, because they are happy and they shouldn’t be happy together.
It would be very easy to judge the film as exploitative and demeaning to abuse victims if one simply read the synopsis and I can only shudder at the hundreds of filmed rapes in South Asian cinema that seem to fulfill some kind of male fantasy of complete testosterone-laden BDSM control over a woman. The very idea of a raped woman using one of the rapists for sex or healing would send Pakistani/ Indian filmmakers (and many audience-members) into a Jackson Pollock-painting tizzy. Not to mention the frequent absurd solution offered in rape cases in reel and real life: that the victim marry the rapist. But Omori visualizes the controversial relationship in an uncompromising, antagonistic, meaningful way. As unrealistic as the story may be, you believe the characters and their choices.
Every story has a beginning, middle and end. Since the film begins in the present, it essentially starts the story from the middle. I don’t think anyone can watch this movie a second time, but for those who do, nothing from the start can feel or look the same way again.
Fifteen years ago, Natsumi went out for a night of fun with a girlfriend Kakano. They meet up with 4 fellow high-schoolers who are part of the baseball team. They hang out in the locker room. The star pitcher Ozaki flirts with Natsumi while the other boys try to get silly with Kakano. The boys are all drunk. Kakano leaves before things get out of hand, ugly. The three boys turn towards Natsumi. At first, Ozaki brushes them off but then leads the gang-rape. Kakano sees this but does nothing. The immediate consequence of the rape is that the baseball playing days of all four are over. Natsumi’s parents get divorced. But both Natsumi and Ozaki move on: she gets a job and so does he. She presumably falls in love and gets engaged to a co-worker - an engagement that ends when his parents find out about her past. The co-worker tells the office that she entangled him through lies and fraud. She gets another job and gets married to someone else. Meanwhile, Ozaki has a very good job in a security firm courtesy another one of the gang-rapists. He has no significant other (It is not clear in the film - but it seems like he is looking at apartments with a girlfriend or may be he's just showing the place to a prospective client). Natsumi miscarries a baby and is in hospital. This is where one of the gang-rapists (a businessman’s unapologetic, arrogant son) sees her and laughs about her and the rape over dinner with friends - a group comprising of women and men, who laugh with him, and a grave stricken Ozaki, who doesn’t. He goes to see her in the hospital. She is shocked. He sends her guilt-ridden letters. She ignores them. She tells her husband about her past. Instead of being kind or concerned, the husband turns into a jealous, violent man who snoops in the wife’s purse for ‘evidence’ of affairs with other men and accuses her of liking group sex. She keeps ending up in the hospital because of the husband. Ozaki keeps sending letters. She tries to kill herself twice. She fails. She leaves the husband and calls Ozaki.
At this point, it is clear that neither of them have been able to move on from the rape. Natsumi is miserable and Ozaki is in pain/ shame. Ozaki does whatever she tells him to do. He accepts Natsumi’s hate and anger as his deliverance. The film literally takes a journey into the unknown when Natsumi keeps walking and Ozaki keeps following her, staying by her side. They travel together, eat together and sleep (separately) in hotels though they are not really together. She hates him and wants him to suffer. He wants to do anything to atone. When he is about to run out of money he tells her to decide what to do with it. They have already left everything and everyone they knew behind. She picks a vacant loft for them to live in - she makes it clear that the place will stay the way it is - no comfort or joy can be in it - and so shall they. Be miserable together. Both take up menial work: he goes to a factory; she, to a convenience store. Of course, they are either attracted to each other or sex is a release from all the pain or that’s the way she exercises control over him. Either way, the film starts with the sex and in the beginning when you know nothing of the past, it just seems like two people who are really into each other, enjoying a make out session, a couple with a healthy sex life - by the end, you won’t be so sure. Many feminists would brush it off as dribble, but it’s there, it’s raw and fierce, and Natsumi is calling the shots nine times out of ten.
Six months go by and a matricide next door throws attention on them and their unusual relationship. It seems like the end of a thing and the beginning of something else.
One of the many uncomfortable questions that the film raises is should Natsumi have a real open relationship with Ozaki at the end of the ‘purgatory’. In the film, he comes across as a man trying to do the right thing. He is not a bad person, is intensely mild-mannered and likes children. He gives her unconditional respect and passion. She has more control over her life with him around than with the fiance-husband combo. Neither can undo the past: he did rape her, it did destroy her relationships; but they cannot deny the present either: they care for each other. Is it wrong? She thinks so, and leaves. He does not, and vows to find her.
Offensively beautiful, well-made, with great performances.
February 5, 2015
Hatred brought them together. Promised both of them must never be happy, ever. Until, suddenly they realized, they're becoming too happy with each other- one must leave.
And one, will do anything to find the other.
Seriously, one of the most unforgetable.
And one, will do anything to find the other.
Seriously, one of the most unforgetable.
April 27, 2025
故事一開始，以為是個單親媽媽的小孩溺死的案件。但沒多久就發現，其實主角是單親媽媽隔壁的一對夫婦。小孩的死不是重點，這本書其實要講的是「強暴者和被強暴者之間的感情」。
當強暴者的強暴行為是基於好感，之後深深後悔，盡可能地表達關心、歉意，甚至以拋棄即將到手的幸福來彌補之前所犯的錯誤，這樣是不是就是可讓被強暴者後來的不幸都得到撫慰，不但原諒對方，甚至愛上對方？
作者認為可以。我不知道。以前認為人只有黑和白的感情的，但漸漸明白人性之軟弱與難以解釋的部分，對於黑白分明，是一點把握也沒有了。
當強暴者的強暴行為是基於好感，之後深深後悔，盡可能地表達關心、歉意，甚至以拋棄即將到手的幸福來彌補之前所犯的錯誤，這樣是不是就是可讓被強暴者後來的不幸都得到撫慰，不但原諒對方，甚至愛上對方？
作者認為可以。我不知道。以前認為人只有黑和白的感情的，但漸漸明白人性之軟弱與難以解釋的部分，對於黑白分明，是一點把握也沒有了。
April 19, 2020
これはいろいろと考えさせられる話だった。この手の犯罪の加害者、被害者に対する世間の反応って、悲しいけどほんとこんな感じな気がする。
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews