Movielogr
The Zen Diary (2022)
Directed by Yuji Nakae
Twitter Facebook Google+Overview
Tsutomu lives alone in the mountains, writing essays, cooking Zen food with the vegetables he grows and the mushrooms he picks in the hills. His routine is happily disturbed when Machiko, his editor and love interest, occasionally visits. Tsutomu seems content with his daily life. On the other hand, he still hasn’t let go of his wife’s ashes, although she died 13 years ago.
Length 112 minutes
Actors
Kenji Sawada | Takako Matsu | Naomi Nishida | Toshinori Omi | Fumi Dan | Shôhei Hino | Tomoko Naraoka | Koihachi Takigawa
Viewing History (seen 1 time)
| Date Viewed | Device | Format | Source | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09/27/2025 | Computer | Streaming | Video on Demand | 8 stars |
| (Average) 8 stars |
Viewing Notes
This movie has the highest TMDb rating of the current JFF Theater titles this quarter so I chose it to view. Hopefully I can get to a couple of the other ones before the month ends.
This is a really nice almost mediative look at solitary living near the mountains in Nagano Prefecture. It’s also about living a Zen lifestyle, being one with nature and living off the land. Also it’s about Zen cooking and food preparation. All the food looks delicious. Not a movie to watch on an empty stomach.
But what really got to me is how this is a movie about life and death and dealing with your mortality. That hit pretty hard. Seeing the dog without it’s human was tough to watch.
Perhaps the only unrealistic aspect of this film, which often feels like a documentary, is that the book editor getting married when she’s probably 40yo or so. Like how did that happen because that rarely happens for women her age. Feels a little wedged in given how the story goes and not really based on truth. I’d like to know what the percentage of woman 40yo get married in Japan. Has to be less than 1 percent of 1 percent (1 out of 10,000? that even seems too high).
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