The Sea of Trees

The Sea of Trees (2016) is a Gus Van Sant drama you can watch online on iFILM. American Arthur travels to Aokigahara, the real forest at the foot of Mount Fuji, planning to end his life among the trees.

Then he runs into Takumi, a Japanese man who came for the same reason and now just wants out. The two strangers pick their way through the so-called sea of trees, and as they walk, Arthur's past unspools: a marriage, an illness, a guilt he can't put down. Matthew McConaughey plays a man at the edge, Ken Watanabe his unlikely companion, with Naomi Watts in the flashbacks that explain how he ended up here.

Van Sant returns to grief, the subject behind Elephant and Last Days, and drops it into a dense Japanese woodland where it's easy to lose your way both in the brush and inside your own head. A quiet, patient film about a stranger pulling you back toward living. Stream The Sea of Trees (2016) online on iFILM.