I don't get it...

There is no meaning to it at all, but they hope it might be mistaken for art. Just pretentious trash but they had a lot of money to spend so it is pretty pretentious trash -- nothing more than a vehicle for a bit of soft porn.

First of all, I would like to ask who the heck was the lighting director on this film? I think I missed half of it because I couldn't see it! I know they were trying to create a melancholy atmosphere and I know that there was no electric light in either the French town or in Japan, but good grief!

I don't know how Helene knew about the obsession with the Japanese girl. In one scene, she and Herve are making love and she is crying. Maybe it was because they cannot have a child, but also maybe because she just feels that her husband is changed in some way. I don't understand the obsession in the first place. I mean, they don't exchange a single word, they hardly glance at one another, he already has a loving, beautiful wife, etc. I haven't read the book, so maybe there is more to it, but are we supposed to guess it was just love at first sight? Or, the allure of the exotic?

I was kind of disappointed, but must admit that the nature of that long letter was a surprise! Didn't see that coming!

The girl Hervé was obsessed about was not a Japanese. She was a Chinese. Most probably a reward or a loot from China. She was the Jap village leader's companion or prize, but not wife. Naturally, Hervé could not have made love with her. She only brought to him a prostitute to spend the night with, as a sign of the lasting friendship between Hervé and the leader.

As to the second part of your question, a woman's intuition can sense if there is another woman. After the final voyage, Hervé was god-awfully depressed and pulled himself into seclusion. So she tried to look into the matter. Baldabiou knew he looked for a Jap translator, so he could have shared that little piece of information with her, and apparently, there was only one translator nearby. If Madame Blanche's memory served her right, it was not difficult to find out about all this at all.

There is nothing difficult to understand in it. I don't get why you did not get it. It is not really desirable to explain every procedure step by step. It's a good thing that the director never explained every single detail, because it does not matter exactly how she found out. What matters is what she did when she found out.

EDIT: I think cmcurrie2 has been badly beaten and harassed by some Japanese or Japanese mafia or someone else related to Japan, or maybe he wanted to be Francois Girard's gay lover, but was turned down. He calls this wonderful movie porn because it had 3-4 minutes of nudity in the whole film. It really gets on my nerves when losers with pathetically miserable educational standards or hidden grudge come here, thinking they are quite somebody and can also comment on films because they are qualified enough to type some basic English!

Nobody told her her husband was in love with a japanese girl, but come on, she's not stupid! He keeps going back to japan and when he comes back he's all melancholy, what woman wouldn't guess?

The woman in Japan that he loves is not available. She is the silkworm sellers wife, girlfriend or geisha. A Geisha is not a prostitute. She is a host and typically she serves Hervé tea. You can see this because the knot on her obi belt is on the back(she has an assistant to dress).

This woman brings an Oiran (prostitute) to Hervé. You can recognise her by the knot at the front of her obi (the customer can undress her).
Usually Oiran also have bare feet (considered sexy) where other women wear socks.


+++ ies it safe? +++

Yeah that bit with the other Japanese girl confused me too. I still don't get why that happened... So far as I can tell, the guy cheated on his wife but couldn't get the girl he wanted so he just slept with some random. Strange story.

My advice is to not bother with questions. There are loads of theories as to who, what, why, where, when and how, but really I doubt the people involved in making this film put nearly as much effort into making it as the people on these boards are in analyzing it. Most any question one might have could be answered thus: the creators were trying to perpetuate the exotic Asia myth. That is the answer for all the chasing of women, the mysterious deaths etc. Did somebody actually not pick up on this even after the movie began with a naked chick in a hotspring glancing back all coyly??? This movie is the spiritual successor to "Shogun" and the like.

most people in this thread are looking at the movie from a western POV, which is why you are confused...

The Girl belonged to the village Lord and he loved her. She fell in love on sight with Herve.

When he returned from France, it was clear she loved him more than ever, but she could never act on such a love, for it would mean death for them both, and she would never dishonor herself or her lord or hurt him through such a shameful act.

The girl who sang at the dinner was either a peasant or a trusted friend (more likely)... and The Girl asked The Singer to be with Herve to express the deep love that she could not.... to at least give him a gift of love that she would probably never be able to give herself.

The Lord knew about the gift, and was deeply hurt by it, as the gift alone was such an intimate expression from The Girl. However, he could do nothing as he loved her and she had respectfully avoided actually betraying him.

This movie is deeply moving and romantic if you are sensitive to Japanese custom of that age, but very few western people today know anything about the gift of another for example.

As far as Helene, it was a small town and Herve went looking for someone to translate Japanese and he went to Japan at great risk when he didn't have to so it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that there was great emotion there.

If you know about the Japanese, this movie is a great tearjerker, if not it sucks... there's not really an in between. so it's got a pretty small audience and thus the unfair rash reviews and poor boxoffice... bumma as I really dig it.