Winner of three well-deserved prizes at last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival, including best picture, Daihachi Yoshida’s “Teki Cometh” (scripted by the director from a 1998 novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui) is the latest in a procession of Japanese films about the plight of the elderly in a rapidly aging society.
It is not, however, yet another domestic drama about a slide into dementia or a generational conflict between conservative age and rebellious youth — themes now as tired as a white-haired gent dozing on a mall bench while his wife shops.
Instead, the film's protagonist, a retired professor of French literature played with finesse and power by Kyozo Nagatsuka, is introduced as a sort of model senior citizen. Living alone in a traditional Japanese house following the death of his wife, he stoically adheres to a daily routine that includes the preparation of simple but appetizing meals. And rather than drift in idleness and social isolation, the professor, Gisuke Watanabe writes articles, gives lectures and interacts with others both in and outside his home.
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