From the understated, unremarkable beauty of Still Walking (歩いても) to Air Doll (空気人形), adapted from a manga, Hirokazu Kore-eda tells his stories slowly, gradually peeling back delicate layers of human nature. Once again his films have left me thoroughly enchanted. Maybe I’ve become addicted.

In the film, an old man says that people with cold hands have warm hearts. I’ve had cold hands since I was a child – in the language of Chinese medicine, that’s explained as poor circulation of qi and blood – but I can’t really say my heart is all that warm either, ha. It makes me think of the person who used to warm my hands for me in winter, long ago, and how touched I was by that.

“I am just an air doll, a tool for humans to satisfy their sexual desire.” Every time I hear her say this line, I think of the lyrics Miriam Yeung sings: I want to cry, could you please stay awake with me a little longer, stay by my side like when we first met, when I wasn’t yet afraid of being tired. I want to be an air doll too, staying by her side, the two of us becoming, together, a “tool” with a heart.

No birth, no death, no brilliance, only eternity. OST download – listening to it, I can’t help but feel a quiet sorrow.