瞽女 GOZE

Haru Kobayashi was een goze, een blinde shamisen speelster (een traditioneel Japans drie-snaarinstrument), en wordt geroemd als de laatste in heel Japan. Ze was pas enkele maanden oud toen een cataract in beide ogen ertoe leidde dat ze blind werd. Van haar vijfde werd ze klaargestoomd voor een carrière als goze. Tot op 78-jarige leeftijd trad ze op in de Niigata, Yamagata en Fukushima prefecturen. The Last Goze is een hulde aan haar levensverhaal en vertelt hoe ze ondanks vele tegenslagen wist door te zetten, en voldoening vond in het entertainen van mensen, en op haar beurt een inspiratie voor jong en oud werd.
Met videoboodschap van regisseur Masaharu Takizawa!

Film: 10€ / 8€
Klik hier voor tickets: ‘The Last Goze’ op vrijdag 25/03 om 22.15

Year: 2020
Director: Masaharu Takizawa
Language: Japanese
Subtitles: English
Length: 109 min

festival.
When you walk with bad people, it is training.

Haru went blind as a 3-month-old baby and then lost her father when she was 2 years old. Because she had lost her sight, she became an itinerant shamisen player, or Goze, at the age of 7. From that point on, her mother, Tome, became unsparing with Haru, although her strictness was rooted in a deeply concealed motherly affection. Unaware of her mother’s real feelings, Haru went on to travel for the first time with the Goze master Fuji when she turned 8 years old. That same year, Tome succumbed to a disease which finally proved fatal. However, during her bereavement, Haru did not shed a single tear for her mother, as she felt Tome had always bullied her.

Her harsh wandering lifestyle imbued Haru with the toughness to survive as a Goze and the fortitude to bear with the evil treatment she received at the hands of the ironhanded Fuji. However, she developed the true spirit of Goze under the nurturing master, Sawa. Haru declared, “When you walk with good people, it is a festival. When you walk with bad people, it is training”.

Haru became a Goze master herself after overcoming various difficulties and then took on a young disciple called Hanayo. The strictness of the training the naive Hanayo was subjected to gave Haru flashbacks of the harsh days when she herself was being raised and trained by her mother. The realization came upon Haru of the true depth of compassion her mother Tome had actually shown towards her child. “Thank you… mother…”

Haru belatedly shed tears of gratitude to her mother.

AWARD:
New Actress Award at Japan Movie Critics Award 2020