Sidonie in Japan: Traveling to a Far Off Land

The rather strange French movie is about an older and lovely best selling book author, Sidonie  who goes to Japan on the invitation of her Japanese publisher Kenzo. Both of them share tragic histories of loss and feel that people like them “share a secret land.” The scenes of Japanese landscapes are gorgeous. 

She is living in the past and cannot move on. She literally sees ghosts of her husband, which understandably makes her a little bit crazy. But she slowly lets go and accepts things as she tours the island nation. The land of ghosts. She learns to move on with her life. “But there is a time to let the dead leave and die, if we want to live again. I am me again, like finding a long lost old friend.” She starts to heal and write again after a long hiatus after her husband's death. 

“I don’t know what’s happening to me. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been as far for a long time. And because I recognize everything here. The lifts, the lights, the roads. And yet, nothing works the way it does in Europe. Everything is strange, even the consistency of the food is different. I feel modified. All this newness is overwhelming me……these are tears of joy, not sadness.”

It was nice to see her slowly come alive from barely awake sad existence as the movie progressed. 

I think this is what traveling to new places does for you. You get disoriented and uncomfortable. But ultimately this newness is invigorating and you start to enjoy it. Even hunger for it. 

Maybe for someone so set in my ways, travel is the only way to jog me out of my comfort and routines. So I can get new ideas and gain new perspectives. Travel literally wakes you up. When you are feeling down or uninspired, it’s probably a good time to hit the road again.