Halving the Bones

Halving the Bones is a documentary written, produced, and directed by author Ruth Ozeki Lounsbury. The film is shot in color/black-and-white and runs 70 minutes in length. The film premiered in 1995 in film festivals such as the Sundance Film Festival, San Francisco Asian American Film Festival, and the Margaret Mead Film Festival. Ozeki’s film has been awarded the International Documentary Association Distinguished Achievement Award, the Kodak Award for Creative Cinematography, and the San Francisco International Film Festival Certificate of Merit.

Narrator Ruth Ozeki explains that she had attended her Japanese maternal grandmother’s funeral in Tokyo five years prior to the events depicted in the documentary. In Japan, when someone is cremated, their bones are not reduced to ash. Instead, half are preserved and split between the descendants. The rest of the bones are buried in a cemetery. Ruth is given a fragment of skull, a small part of a rib, and an unidentified bone to bring back the United States for her mother who did not attend the funeral. Reluctant to give the bones to her mother, Ruth lets the bones sit in a tea can on her shelf in her closet. Years pass by, and finally Ruth decides it is time to complete the task given to her so many years ago.

This film is separated into three sections. In the first section, Ruth tells the story of her grandmother’s immigration to America as a picture bride who gets married to a Japanese photographer and poet. Ozeki tells the audience that her grandmother fell in love with her grandfather at first sight and was very content living in Hawaii. Ruth’s grandfather was an eccentric man who wrote one poem a day, made short films, and practiced rigorous mental training. He could impale his arm with a blade without bleeding and could walk on the blades of swords with his bare feet without injury. Also in the first section of the film, Ruth shows a series of short home films depicting her grandmother, supposedly filmed by her grandfather. Yet, as Ozeki transitions into the second section of the film, she debunks many of the events mentioned in the first section.

Ruth states that her grandmother hated Hawaii and the small rural town that she lived in. She missed Japan and the familiarity of Tokyo. Thus, when she became pregnant with her second child, Ruth’s grandmother falsely claimed sickness and was diagnosed to have a tumor in her stomach, which was actually her unborn daughter. Her grandmother then traveled by ship back to Japan to be treated by a specialist. Ruth explains that this is why her mother was born in Japan. Additionally, Ruth admits that she had created the home videos shown in the first section of the film. She explains that she had fabricated the clips in order to portray how she wanted to represent her family’s history.

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