Phantasm and suicide

概要

Phantasm and suicide

Shisei Tei*, Junya Fujino

* Correspondence:

Shisei Tei
chengctky@gmail.com

Main text
Sudden death and suicide complicate grief. They can induce conflicting feelings of guilt and questions of
who to blame. Casting light on such grief, Phantom Light portrays the universal experience of bereavement
through a lens of uncertainty. This tranquil film depicts people’s suffering and comfort and the ambiguity
and flexibility of human nature.
Phantom Light explores the mutual proximity, and even the identity, of life and death. This internationally
acclaimed film allows us to sense how inconclusive grief is encountered and perceived, similar to the
original novel Phantom Lights (2020). This 1995 movie was the fiction film debut of documentarian and
Cannes Palme d’Or winner Hirokazu Kore-eda, currently one of the titans of cinema.
Narrated by a young widow, Yumiko, who has moved to a small seaside town to remarry, the story
illustrates her struggle to understand why her first husband committed suicide without warning or apparent
motive. Even after her remarriage to Tamio, Yumiko is stranded more than ever at the crossroads between
living and dying. As her spirit is slowly crushed, she unburdens herself to Tamio. Thoughtfully, he tells her a
story of how fishermen sometimes succumb to the lure of phantom lights over the horizon. He suggests that
perhaps, something just drew her husband away from life, like the lights attracting the fishermen. Longing
for death can be a force as unpredictable and irresistible as those distant phantom lights. As Yumiko halts
her unsuccessful attempts at finding meaning in loss and flexibly resolves conflicts with reality and ideals,
the film reflects on our experiences of grief that occasionally embody simultaneous but contradictory ideas
of the inherent meaningfulness and meaninglessness of loss. The film tells us that suffering may be
aggravated by reaffirming selfish hope; mitigating such expectations while sharing these experiences of
grief may provide clues to the riddles of life.
While fate, death and the will to live are sketched throughout the narrative, Phantom Light enables us to
envision existential crises. Assuaging such crises might involve admitting uncertainty and withholding
excessive judgement, reminiscent of epoché. Furthermore, the film’s dynamic landscape echoes the tapestry
of human behaviour, interwoven with perceptions of identity and belief and sometimes entranced by
ever-changing mental activity. Along with the breath-taking scenery of the coastal village, the ambiguous
boundary of light and darkness are unified in the seashore, perhaps describing the balance between the
transient and eternal, modernism and tradition. Phantom Light’s depiction of the acceptance of uncertainty
and employing flexible perspectives in coping with grief may echo the recent suggestion of a ‘middle path’
for suicide prevention in The phantasm of zero suicide (2023) published in BJPsych, which, considering the
changing and uncertain psychosocial needs of patients, advocates personalised care for their medical
condition while flexibly supporting their individual autonomy as appropriate.
Confronting death is challenging, but Phantom Light reminds us that it need not be overwhelming; accepting
uncertainty and adopting a flexible approach can lead us to the ‘middle’ path where the phantom lights
reveal alternative views in appreciating life.

Data Availability: Not applicable
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank the audiences of recent talks given by us, which helped to develop the ideas presented.
We also wish to thank the members of the psychiatry lab in Kyoto University for their fruitful feedback.
Author Contributions
ST and JF designed the work, and ST wrote the first draft. Both authors contributed to the manuscript and
approved the submitted version.
Funding
This work received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. ...