White Flowers and Fruits ★★★

Ghosts, grief, and growing up form a melancholic mêlée in Sakamoto Yukari‘s directorial debut about characters quite literally haunted by loss. Set in a Christian all-girls boarding school, bowing in San Sebastián’s New Directors section, White Flowers and Fruits enters the coming-of-age and supernatural drama arena with a quiet ambition tempered by discomfort. Repressed sadness, reinforced silence, and shared solitude are the true spirits pervading in a fairytale-like setting both bleak and strangely beautiful. In this enclosed world prizing conformity above all else, the specters of the deceased become the metaphorical manifestation of a truth that can’t be repressed. 

The first to hint at it is Anna (Miro), a quiet outsider among the girls, burdened by the uncanny ability to see ghosts. Her popular roommate Rika (Nico Aoto) seems everything Anna is not: charismatic, admired, and outwardly perfect. The delicate balance of school life is shattered when Rika unexpectedly takes her own life, leaving the entire community in a state of surprise, shame, and shock. Suffering most is Rika’s closest friend Shiori (Anji Ikehata), plagued by guilt and refusing to accept the official verdict of suicide. To come to terms with Rika’s death, Anna begins studying her diary, trying to piece together her roommate’s inner life. 

It is here that the familiar darkness of teenage isolation lets the supernatural seep in. Strange phenomena point towards Rika’s presence in strange flame and flickering visions, which gradually seep into Anna’s body and consciousness. United by pain, Anna and Shiori piece together the fragments of Rika’s past, finding themselves forced to confront how little they truly understood her hidden despair and how much their own denial contributed to her tragedy. The subdued story gradually shifts from internal tension to external phenomena. After consuming the flame, Anna finds herself endowed with extraordinary dancing abilities. Through these Sakamoto gently questions identity, guilt, and the subconscious pull of death. 

Suggested supernatural encounters, memories, and emotional confrontations explore the liminal spaces between life and death, loss and revelation. Attentive visuals suffuse the scenes within the boarding school’s wainscoted halls with an eerie elegance. Hushed tears, echoing prayers and muted sounds become allegorical reverberations of what is concealed. Yasutaka Watanabe‘s moody cinematography balances naturalism and glimpses of the metaphysical. Close-ups of the young protagonist’s aggravated gaze and stilted dance sequences leave it to the viewer to decide if the haunting is real or her imagination. Whispers of Japanese ghost stories counterpoint the restrictive religious code teaching future women to be a pretty presence without their own voice. 

Capable performances, especially by Ikehata and Aoto, suggest an emotional depth within the protagonists beyond their slightly perfunctory dramatic development. Much like his introverted protagonist, director-writer Sakamoto can get lost in her own world, lingering too long over the brooding air and repeating narrative notions already established. Still, there is a comforting appeal in the uncommon concept of a wraithlike presence as a source of support and guidance within social surroundings that offer neither. Allegorically, absorbing Rika’s spirit allows Anna to adjust her idealized image and see Rika’s pain and loneliness. Simultaneously, she learns to appreciate her grief as integral both to her humanity and her relationship with the deceased. 

In an era that pathologizes sadness and thoughts of suicide (which many experience at some point in their lives), and favors compulsive positivity over addressing negative feelings, this message of acceptance is as rare as it is valuable – not only for the young audience it appeals to. By relieving the death of melodrama and pompous decorum, as well as dread and dismalness, Sakamoto’s gentle ghost tale truly comes to life.