The teacher-disciple relationship is an important one in Buddhist practice and it is at the center of The Death of a Tea Master. Toshiro Mifune portrays the influential sixteenth-century tea master Sen no Rikyu who served the warlord Hideyoshi (this was also the subject of Rikyu, shown in October). After Rikyu's death, Honkakubo, a bereaved follower, secludes himself in a hermitage and holds nightly conversations with his departed master. These visits, or visions, however one interprets them, lead to an understanding of the meaning of Rikyu's death and the power of his tea ceremony. The film achieves a remarkable penetration of realities in a non-linear narrative that has as its model a wheel or mandala: flashbacks and flashforwards negate a concept of the present, but continually provide paths (in the form of clues) toward the center. Thus does the story of Sen no Rikyu and his times unfold as a mystery-a mystery of meaning.