Kiraware Matsuko no isshô (2006)

After being dumped by his girlfriend, Shō Kawajiri (Eita) learns from his father, Norio (Teruyuki Kagawa), that his aunt Matsuko (Miki Nakatani)—whom he has never met—has been murdered. He meets the strange people who were part of Matsuko’s life and looks back on her story. Born the eldest daughter of the Kawajiri family in Fukuoka Prefecture, Matsuko becomes a teacher in the hope of winning the attention of her father (Akira Emoto), who worries only about her frail younger sister (Mimiko Ichikawa). When she takes the blame for her student Ryū’s (Yūsuke Iseya) theft, she is forced to resign. She also explodes at her sister over her resentment and cuts ties with her family. After leaving home, Matsuko lives with Yamekawa (Kankurō Kudō), an aspiring writer who says he is the reincarnation of Osamu Dazai. Day after day, he begs her for money and abuses her. Then Yamekawa takes his own life. Matsuko later becomes the mistress of his friend Okano (Gekidan Hitori), also an aspiring writer, but when she visits Okano’s home, his wife finds out, and he abandons her. After Okano tells her that her body was good, Matsuko becomes a soapland sex worker and rises to the top in sales. But as times change, her popularity declines, and eventually she is fired. Later, she teams up with Onodera (Shinji Takeda), who approaches her in Nakasu. When she discovers that he has been spending their earnings on another woman, she kills him. Matsuko heads to Tokyo and is about to take her own life when a barber, Shimazu (YoshiYoshi Arakawa), speaks to her. She begins living with him, but a month later she is arrested for murder. While serving eight years in prison, she earns a hairdressing qualification. After her release, she tries to return to Shimazu, but learns that he has a wife and child and leaves. Matsuko works at a hair salon in Ginza and reunites with Sawamura (Asuka Kurosawa), who was in prison at the same time as her; the two become close friends. However, Matsuko suddenly starts keeping her distance from Sawamura. Around this time, she reunites with Ryū, who has become a yakuza. He confesses that he had always loved her, and they begin a relationship. At first, Matsuko tries to persuade him to leave the yakuza and return to an ordinary life, but eventually resolves to live as a yakuza’s woman. When she and Ryū, who has been embezzling money from his organization, are cornered, they try to kill themselves but fail. Ryū reports to the police that he has committed murder and is imprisoned. Matsuko gets by by imagining the happy life they will have after his release, but when Ryū gets out, he beats her and runs away to drive her off as she comes to meet him. Having become something of a recluse, Matsuko decides to live alone. She moves into an apartment beside the Arakawa River, whose scenery resembles the Chikugo River near her hometown. She grows obese, spending her time eating, drinking, and living in a room overflowing with trash, and becomes a fanatical fan of the pop group Hikaru Genji. When she goes berserk because they do not reply to her fan letter, she begins to develop symptoms such as hallucinations. At the psychiatric hospital she attends, she runs into Sawamura, who has since become a company owner, and tries to flee. Sawamura gives her a business card, saying, “I’m looking for a hairdresser for my company. Get in touch if you’re interested.” Matsuko throws the card away by the riverbank, but that night she gradually remembers what it felt like to work as a hairdresser and decides to give it another try. She goes back to the riverbank to look for the card she threw away and finds it. There, she reprimands a group of delinquent middle-schoolers who are drinking and fooling around, but they beat her with a baseball bat, and she dies. After her death, Matsuko climbs the stairs to heaven, singing cheerfully. They are also the stairs to the second floor of her family home, where her younger sister Kumi is waiting.