“Shara-Sojyu” is according to Buddhist tradition the garden in which Gautama Buddha died when the trees suddenly began to bloom. The white color of the flowers on the tree of Shara-Sojyu suggests that the destiny of the prosperous is inevitably to decline. Naomi Kawase´s subtle drama about disappearance and grief features one of the most beautiful dance sequences in cinema. The kanjis Taku paints after his child disappears are “darkness” and “light”, and the whole film can be regarded as a poem on the contradiction of beauty and sadness.