Baggage

Through the striking and diverse architectural setting of San Francisco, Mamako carries her ‘baggage’, an allegorical piece of luggage representing the burden of conscience and man’s struggle to free himself from a psychological and emotional restrictions. In a series of vignettes -- in front of row homes, in a church, at an office plaza, a baggage locker, and an airport -- the young girl wrestles with her burden. When she manages, however, to rid herself of it, she feels completely lost. Reunited with her ‘baggage’, she greets it with grateful resignation. She cannot exist without it, but it weighs so heavily on her mind that it prevents her from enjoying the world around her. In the film’s final sequence, Mamako surrenders her ‘baggage’ in her death -- a death perhaps of the spirit that has been crushed by mental burden.