In Picnic, director Shunji
Iwai has crafted a short film of visual beauty and lyric poetry. Three
young inmates at a mental institution walk along a wall connecting the
hospital to the outside world and simply keep going, perhaps a metaphor
for the Jungian idea of the long journey back to the genuine self. As they
travel on a ledge between the ground and the sky, each in their own way
attempts to liberate themselves from their inauthenticity and recapture
the experience of wholeness. The inmates are Coco, played by Chara, a Japanese
pop singer who would later star in Iwai’s Swallowtail Butterfly, Tsumuji,
performed by Tadanobu Asano, now the husband of Chara, and Satoru (Koichi
Hashizumi).
The first twenty minutes
are set inside the institution. A reluctant Chara is delivered to the hospital
by her parents and is subject to abuse and mistreatment by a female attendant.
Tsumuji has murdered one of his teachers who was abusing him and sees the
dead man’s ghost before him in a very disturbing sequence. It is not clear
why Satoru is there but we see scenes of him masturbating excessively.
As the three find a common bond, they set out on their journey, first encountering
a young choir at a Christian church singing an otherworldly hymn. They
are befriended by the priest who gives them a bible even though Tsumiji
says he is a non-believer.
When the boy reads the
publication date, however, he concludes that will be the day the world
will end and the three decide to have a picnic at the nearby lighthouse
to wait for the fateful moment. As they prepare to witness the world’s
end, they open up to each other with a childlike innocence and acknowledge
their wrongdoing. Elizabeth Lesser says, “The price for staying heart blind
is a life unlived”. The Dalai Lama has gone as far as saying that “the
tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them
is the primary basis of all mental illness”. As they talk to each other
and begin to make connection, they become real people not “mental patients”.
While the film’s meaning
may be different to each viewer, to me it is saying that we should live
our life as if the world will end tomorrow, be in touch with the beauty
of each moment, and acknowledge the actions in our life that may have harmed
others. Whatever the message, Picnic is a stunning achievement, each scene
capable of standing alone as a unique work of art. In spite of a sadness
that reminded me of my own dark moods of adolescence, it left me with a
feeling of transcendence.