What is a good death? For certain Japanese Buddhist priests it was sokushinbutsu — self-mummification. As practiced by members of the Shingon sect, it was a decade-long process that culminated with the priest's descent into a stone tomb to meditate in darkness, without food or water, until the final breath. After death, the priest's body would naturally mummify as a permanent testimony to his spiritual strength and purity.
This is the unstated backdrop to Masahiro Kobayashi's dark family drama "Nihon no Higeki (Japan's Tragedy)," whose elderly hero Fujio (Tatsuya Nakadai) attempts his own version of this ancient and painful suicide method. Fujio's motives are not religious but entirely personal, though his dilemma reflects larger events and trends in Japanese society.
The story begins after Fujio's operation for lung cancer in Tokyo on March 11, 2011, and his decision to reject further treatment. Knowing he has only three months to live, he returns to his family home to commemorate the anniversary of his wife's death, accompanied by his unemployed son, Yoshio (Kazuki Kitamura).