When death comes unexpectedly, Jasmine O’Dale is astonished at what she recalls—her mother’s journals and one enchanting day on a mountain in Japan.
While she precariously bridged two cultures with her looks, her heart and her destiny, a clash of wills eventually drove her and her American father Jasper apart. Haunted by mistakes of her youth and seeking redemption, hoping to unravel the secrets of her parents’ postwar marriage, she visited the shrine of her Japanese mother Kitsune’s youth.
From her arrival in Japan, through every turn in the Tunnel of Ten Thousand Torii at Fushimi Inari Grand Shrine, Jasmine relived formative moments from her 1960s childhood in Detroit, Michigan. Race riots and fear devastated the city and those cultural influences took their toll on her family. Against the odds, she and Kitsune both developed their full potential as photographers. In her last moments, as the memories snap into place on the reel of film that was her life, as reality blurred between past and present, Jasmine discovers on which side of the limen she stands.
“Liminality: The Fox Woman’s Child” examines the consequences of war, racism, and religious differences on familial relationships presented as a Japanese-style ghost story with plot twists in the manner of traditional folklore.
If death came this suddenly, what would you recall?