The specter of death is often present on screen, but relatively few films make it a central, all-encompassing theme. Naoko Ogigami’s poignantly offbeat “Riverside Mukolitta,” which the director scripted from her own novel, ends with the Buddhist message that all deaths, even of the most humble and obscure, matter. That said, the film is not a dressed-up religious parable, though a screen caption explains that the titular “Mukolitta” is a “unit of Buddhist time, equal to 1/30th of a day or 48 minutes.”
As expected from Ogigami, whose breakout hit was the 2006 dramedy “Kamome Diner,” absurdist comedy and humanistic drama take precedence over philosophizing. Certain moments, however, convey a depth of pain and pathos that is new to her work, even though suited to her subject matter, while others are hauntingly surreal.
Her protagonist is Takeshi Yamada (Kenichi Matsuyama), a quiet loner who moves into “Heights Mukolitta,” a rundown apartment block by a river, and starts working at a small factory that processes squid into shiokara, a fermented seafood side dish.