Great Absence
Synopsis
When working actor Takashi receives a jarring call from the police, he is forced to reconnect with his estranged father of 20 years, Yohji, an esteemed academic slipping rapidly into dementia. As Takashi attempts to piece together the mystery of Yohji’s missing wife and the fractured life his father now inhabits, their reunion uncovers long-buried tensions and unspoken grief, forcing Takashi to trace the past of his father that he has long refused to accept.
Unfolding as a meditation on loss — of time, identity, and familial closeness never fully grasped — Great Absence is a “delicately devastating” (Variety) award-winning drama from rising star director Kei Chikaura that navigates the fragile terrain of memory, estrangement, and the quiet devastations of aging.