There are times when you’re watching a movie and you can just tell the whole thing is incredibly personal to the director. There are details that feel too specific to have been pulled entirely out of someone’s imagination—maybe we linger on a shot of someone holding a leaf for an unusually long time, or maybe it’s just how we watch our characters watching each other. And there are details missing that we usually expect, story beats that typically show up when someone’s invented a screenplay. And sometimes, there are scenes or shifts in tone that don’t make much sense with the rest of the film, but we feel like we can forgive those because it just seems like this all means a great deal to someone.
I got all of these feelings while watching Cottontail, and my suspicions were confirmed when I read a statement by director Patrick Dickinson, who very much incorporated his own story into the film, although the specifics are not the same. This movie takes place in Japan, as a taciturn man in his 60s has just lost his wife to some kind of early onset dementia. She left behind a letter asking him to scatter her ashes at a lake in England that she remembered from her childhood, and asking him to take along their son and his family, so that they can all visit a place that meant so much to her but that they never got to see together. The man and his son aren’t estranged, but they appear to have trouble interacting, likely because of the man’s obvious difficulty in showing emotion. They both loved the woman who is now gone, but their connection to each other has not been easy.
The film is understated, usually, and often as quiet as our main character, and it pulls some deep emotion from its soft tone and unhurried rhythms. There are a few scenes that run a little bit counter to this, and they do seem out of place, but, as I said, we can forgive that. When a director can express something this personal as effectively as Dickinson does, that should be appreciated.
Cottontail is on VOD.
