Based on a novel recounting actual events, Inochi is an intensely personal film made all the more poignant by its real-world basis. Miri Yu (Makiko Esumi) is an author who, we discover in the film first few moments, is expecting a child by a married man. He refuses to help with the child, but begs Miri to go through with the pregnancy. After severing those ties, Miri calls upon a former flame, the chain-smoking theater director Yutaka Higashi (Etsushi Toyakawa). Through their conversations and flashbacks, we learn of their relationship and those things that drew them together. Years ago, during their ten-year fling, Miri would sit next to the impassioned Higashi as he directed his actors, putting such abundant passion into his job that watching him direct could be equally as entertaining as watching his final product. Back in current times, Miri discovers that Higashi is plagued with a bad cough and almost complete lack of appetite. After examination, he discovers that he has a sever cancer, already spread through much of his torso. As the film continues, characters and relationships bloom and wilt before our eyes, sometimes quite literally, and the connection and parallels between Higashi in his last months of life and Yu's child, Takemaru, in his first make Higashi's descent even more tragic.

Director Tetsuo Shinohara handles the film with taste and at times Kurosawa-esque visual poetry. The flashbacks are bathed in an amber hue, signifying the fire of the characters' lives at their prime. This stands as a stark contrast to the present-day scenes where, until the baby is born (the scenes with the baby shine with that same light), everything is washed out, signifying the comparative dullness that all of the lives have descended into, and Higashi's literal decay. Shinohara works not only with visual cohesiveness, however, and from the genuine, fleshed out characters, its not hard to imagine that Toyakawa may have channeled Shinohara for his portrayal of a passionate, character-oriented director.

It would be unfair, however, to give Shinohara full credit for his actors' brilliant work. Inochi is one of those rare films where literally every performance lands perfectly on the mark. Many of these actors you've seen before, but they shed their former skins and really live in the world of the film. Etsushi Toyakawa gives the most immediate impression of an inspired performance, his character has the most tangible growth (in his case, decay), and he handles it brilliantly. But Makiko Esumi may have an even more difficult job, showing the turmoil between her characters joy and frustration with her new child and her fear and exhaustion at Higashi's descent into death. Kirin Kiki steals her scenes as Miri's mother, and, despite her small part, brings a real weight and depth to her role.

In short, Inochi is without a doubt among the best films of the new millennium, and one of Japan's greatest cinematic achievements. It is slow paced but never dull, and it paints a uniquely haunting picture of a cancer victim. That the film has yet to see any kind of American release is appalling; everyone should seek this film out, on whatever medium you can find.