We watched the film, Cold Fever, in class and I was absent for the first part of the film. I had a couple of classmates give me a quick overview of what I had missed and from what I gathered, the focus of the film was carrying out a Japanese tradition of visiting the site where his parents had died on the 7th anniversary of their death. I have a couple of questions though: does this tradition only apply to people whose parents died far away? Is this a ritual that all Japanese people have to complete at some point in their lives? I'm still a bit lost on the basic lay out of the story, but after piecing together the second part of the film and the summaries my peers gave me, I was able to relate most of the events on his journey to the 4 axioms of sacred place and the 3 approaches to sacred place. One of the most important themes of the film, in my opinion, was ritual and its relation to sacred place. It was my understanding that he had to perform a ritual when he finally arrived at the site of his parents' death and it was clear during that scene of the film how much this ritualization transformed the man and the significance of his journey in relation to his parents and making that particular place a sacred one.
04.22.12
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