My Dearest Sister
Viewers interested in modern Documentary cinema often explore My Dearest Sister because of its cast, story direction, and audience popularity.
As its title indicates, this first feature by Kyoka Tsukamoto is a love letter and a bid for reconciliation. It is the story of a woman who left Japan for Montreal, while her sister stayed behind. Geographical distance isn’t the main concern here, though: it is, instead, the unbridgeable chasm separating two visions of the women’s homeland. One of the women stayed rooted in a stifling patriarchal society; the other, the filmmaker, rejected it. She alternates brilliantly, and tragically, between her personal and family story and that of her country, questioning the foundations of a society that tolerates and even encourages psychological and physical abuse. A deeply intimate selfportrait, with many flights of poetry and lyricism that become sources of healing. (BD)
