is a 1995 Japanese

comedy-drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

film directed by

Kaneto Shindo was a Japanese film director, screenwriter, film producer, and writer, who directed 48 films and wrote scripts for 238. His best known films as a director include ''Children of Hiroshima'', ''The Naked Island'', '' Onibaba'', ''Kuroneko'' and ' ...

. It was the last film of actresses

Haruko Sugimura was a Japanese stage and film actress, best known for her appearances in the films of Yasujirō Ozu and Mikio Naruse from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. Biography Sugimura was born in Nishi-ku, Hiroshima. After the death of her parents, sh ...

and Nobuko Otowa.

Plot

Yoko Morimoto, an aged but still active widowed actress, takes a rest from rehearsals and the hot temperature in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

in her rural summer residence. Toyoko Yanagawa, her housemaid of many years, tells her that the 83-year-old gardener committed suicide, leaving behind a note which simply said, "it's over". On his self-made coffin, he had placed a heavy stone from the nearby riverbed, to be used for nailing the coffin's lid. Later, Yoko receives a phone call by Mr. Fujihachiro Ushiguni, who is on a trip with his wife Tomie, an old friend and former theatre troupe colleague of Yoko. Yoko invites them into her house. Tomie is senile and has memory lapses and difficulties to recognise others, but with Yoko's help, she can still recite passages from

Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; 29 January 1860 Old Style date 17 January. – 15 July 1904 Old Style date 2 July.) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career ...

's plays ''

The Seagull ''The Seagull'' ( rus, Ча́йка, r=Cháyka, links=no) is a play by Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov, written in 1895 and first produced in 1896. ''The Seagull'' is generally considered to be the first of his four major plays. It dramatises t ...

'' and '' Three Sisters'', which they used to perform many years ago. The next day, an armed man breaks into the house and demands food from the women at gunpoint. Tomie tries to grab his weapon, and moments later, he is arrested by the police. The intruder turns out to be a mentally ill criminal who had attacked residents of an old people's home, driven mad by their incessant playing

croquet Croquet ( or ; french: croquet) is a sport that involves hitting wooden or plastic balls with a mallet through hoops (often called "wickets" in the United States) embedded in a grass playing court. Its international governing body is the Wor ...

. Tomie receives a reward for helping to capture the escapee, but when she, her husband, Yoko and Toyoko go out to have lunch in an exclusive restaurant, they are disappointed to find that the envelope she was handed out contains only 10,000

yen The is the official currency of Japan. It is the third-most traded currency in the foreign exchange market, after the United States dollar (US$) and the euro. It is also widely used as a third reserve currency after the US dollar and the e ...

rather than the 300,000 yen they had hoped for. The Ushigunis leave the summer house to continue their journey. After their departure, Toyoko confesses to Yoko that she had an affair with Yoko's husband Saburo while she was on tour 22 years ago, and that Saburo is the father of Toyoko's daughter Akemi. Yoko is indignant at first, and Toyoko leaves the house, but eventually the women settle their dispute. Later, they attend the traditional "tentative marriage" ceremony of Akemi and her future husband Daigoro, a common local man, and watch various stylized costumed dances of sexual rituals. The next morning, newspaper journalist Naoko visits Yoko's house, telling her that Tomie and her husband committed

shinjū ''Shinjū'' (心中, the characters for "mind" and "centre") means "double suicide" in Japanese, as in '' Shinjū Ten no Amijima'' (''The Love Suicides at Amijima''), written by the seventeenth-century tragedian Chikamatsu Monzaemon for the ''bun ...

in the ocean near Naoetsu, Niigata. Yoko realises that the couple had been on their last journey and that their visit was Tomie's means of saying goodbye. Together with the journalist, Yoko and Toyoko retrace their final steps. Back in her residence, Yoko packs her suitcase to return to Tokyo, instructing Toyoko to keep the gardener's stone for Yoko's coffin in case she should die. After Yoko has left, Toyoko takes the stone to the river and throws it into the water.

Cast

as Yoko Morimoto * Nobuko Otowa as Toyoko Yanagawa *

Hideo Kanze was a Japanese actor and director, who specialized in the Noh form of musical drama. He was the second son of Kanze Tetsunojō VII, a descendant of Kan'ami and Zeami, who founded the Noh movement in the 14th century. Trained alongside his brothe ...

as Fujihachiro Ushiguni * Kyoko Asagiri as Tomie Ushiguni *

Toshiyuki Nagashima is a Japanese actor. He won the award for Best Newcomer at the 3rd Hochi Film Awards for '' Kaerazaru hibi'' and for Best Actor at the 6th Hochi Film Awards for '' Enrai''. Selected filmography Film *'' Kaerazaru hibi'' (1978) *''Third Base'' ...

as Police Officer *

Mitsuko Baisho , is a Japanese actress, whose most internationally known work has been for director Shohei Imamura, from 1979 up to the director's final film in 2010. Baisho has also appeared in films of Akira Kurosawa. She won awards for best actress at the 10 ...

as Naoko Yazawa *

Yutaka Matsushige is a Japanese actor. Career Matsushige has appeared in the films such as '' EM Embalming'', ''Adrenaline Drive'', ''Last Life in the Universe'', and ''Outrage Beyond''. He won the award for best supporting actor at the 31st Yokohama Film Festi ...

as Daigoro * Tomomi Seo as Akemi * Katsumi Kiba as Intruder * Kōichi Ueda as Chief of Police *

Masahiko Tsugawa , born Masahiko Katō (加藤雅彦 ''Katō Masahiko''; January 2, 1940 – August 4, 2018) was a Japanese actor and director. Career Tsugawa was born January 2, 1940, in Kyoto, Japan. After acting as a child, he made his major debut at the age ...

as Saburo Morimoto * Masaaki Uchino as Koji Kiyokawa

Production

The house in the mountains was director Shindō's actual mountain retreat, and is the same building as the old man's house in Tree Without Leaves. Shindō's wife Nobuko Otowa was diagnosed with terminal cancer during the production and died in December 1994, prior to the film's release.

Awards

* 1995

Hochi Film Award The are film-specific prizes awarded by the ''Hochi Shimbun , previously known as , is a Japanese-language daily sports newspaper. In 2002, it had a circulation of a million copies a day. It is an affiliate newspaper of ''Yomiuri Shimbun''. ...

for Best Film * 1996

Japan Academy Film Prize The , often called the Japan Academy Prize, the Japan Academy Awards, and the Japanese Academy Awards, is a series of awards given annually since 1978 by the Japan Academy Film Prize Association (日本アカデミー賞協会, ''Nippon Akademii- ...

for Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress (Nobuko Otowa) * 1996 Blue Ribbon Award for Best Film * 1996

Kinema Junpo Awards , commonly called , is Japan's oldest film magazine and began publication in July 1919. It was first published three times a month, using the Japanese ''Jun'' (旬) system of dividing months into three parts, but the postwar ''Kinema Junpō'' ha ...

for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress (Haruko Sugimura) and Best Supporting Actress (Nobuko Otowa) * 1996

Mainichi Film Concours The are a series of annual film awards, sponsored by Mainichi Shinbun (毎日新聞), one of the largest newspaper companies in Japan, since 1946. It is the first film festival in Japan. History The origins of the contest date back to 1935, ...

for Best Film, Best Director and Best Actress (Haruko Sugimura) ''A Last Note'' was also shown in competition at the

19th Moscow International Film Festival The 19th Moscow International Film Festival was held from 17 to 28 July 1995. The Golden St. George was not awarded. Jury * Richard Gere (United States – President of the Jury) * Friedrich Gorenstein (Germany) * Aurelio De Laurentiis (Italy) ...

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Last Note, A 1995 films 1995 comedy-drama films Japanese comedy-drama films Films directed by Kaneto Shindo Picture of the Year Japan Academy Prize winners Best Film Kinema Junpo Award winners 1990s Japanese films