The Height of the Coconut Trees
Cinematographer-turned-director Du Jie makes a seamless transition with this sumptuous, piercing relationship drama that charts fate, regret, and heartbreak across a stunning Japanese countryside.
Q&A with Du Jie on April 8 at 8:30pm (FLC) and April 10 at 6:00pm (MoMA)
Chinese cinematographer-turned-director Du Jie makes a seamless transition with The Height of the Coconut Trees, a Japan-set debut that is equal parts sumptuous and piercing. While Sugamoto’s relationship is coming undone, Rin mourns the suicide of his girlfriend. When calamity strikes, Sugamoto visits the countryside resort Rin has taken over to combat his grief, uniting two people for whom life has been an unbearable procession of yearning and loss. From these plots Du turns Coconut Trees into a miniature travelogue and existential road picture—come for the beautiful locales, stay for a conversation about fate, faith, and regret worthy of Rohmer—with faint wisps of a ghost tale.
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