Japan Cuts ’18: Radiance

In the case of Naomi Kawase’s films, it would be particularly difficult to write audio descriptions for visually impaired patrons, because of the delicate way she employs light. She probably understands this, because she obviously invites sympathy for Misako Ozaki, who is writing a descriptive script for a slightly less arty but still demanding film coming soon to Japanese theaters. Unfortunately, she has a harsh critic in her focus group, who also happens to be partially sighted. Yet, they will make a connection, at least to some extent, in Kawase’s Radiance (trailer here), which screens during the 2018 Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film.

Most of Ozaki’s beta testers are supportive, but not Masaya Nakamori. Initially, his criticism stings, but she soon learns he has good reason for his bitterness. Nakamori was an internationally renowned photographer, but his degenerative condition has forced him to give up his passion and vocation. Similarly, Ozaki is not the shallow young thing Nakamori presumes her to be. She is dealing with some pretty heavy issues of her own, including the recent death of her father and her mother’s progressive dementia.

So maybe they can forge something between a friendship and a romance, at least for a short period. In any event, it will not be the Nicolas Sparks style romance the international one-sheets clearly promise. Kawase does not do conventional romance, but issues of communication, perception, and aging are all in her power zone.

Without question, Sweet Bean is and will probably always be Kawase’s most commercial film, by a country mile. Still, Radiance is more accessible than representative works like Still the Waters or Mourning Forest. In many ways, it is a film lover’s film. In fact, it intriguingly suggests Ozaki’s focus group members effectively experience the same film new several times over, because her evolving approach to the descriptive script makes it something different each time. There is something provocative in that notion that we wish Kawase has devoted even more time to flesh out.

Nevertheless, Ayame Misaki, previously best known for franchises like Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters and Attack on Titan, is a genuine revelation as Ozaki. She is exquisitely expressive and sensitive, but also remarkably disciplined. In short, she is perfect for a Kawase film. Masatoshi Nagase (who was so quietly perfect in Sweet Bean) literally rages against the dying of the light as Nakamori, in an acutely human kind of way. Tatsuya Fuji also adds some wry seasoning as the director and lead actor of the film Ozaki is laboring to describe.

Radiance is not for short-attention-span lowest common denominator viewers, but it is a good film, with a heart and a brain. It not only makes us examine how we perceive the world, it also challenges us to reconsider the very act of perceiving. It is hard to put you finger on, but there is something like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle going on in this film. There is also some very emotionally raw drama. Recommended for mature cineastes, Radiance screens tomorrow (7/25) at the Japan Society, as part of this year’s Japan Cuts.

Naomi Kawase’s Sweet Bean

Dorayaki is the favorite sweet treat of manga character Doraemon. Consisting of two pancakes stuffed with sweet bean paste (“an”), they resemble large Macarons (which in turn, are very different from macaroons). Sentaro has no taste for them, yet he manages a dorayaki stand. Of course, neither Sentaro or his two closest associates need to be told life is not fair. However, the experiences of septuagenarian Tokue will profoundly move him and their teen-aged friend. Food and natural beauty will provide some consolation in Naomi Kawase’s Sweet Bean (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Sentaro is a quiet, solitary man. He rarely speaks to his customers, but he makes an exception in the case of Wakana. Unlike her shallow classmates, she will probably not be attending college. Instead, her neglectful mother expects her to start working fulltime. Work represents something entirely different for Tokue. She is willing to take half the wages Sentaro is offering for a part time assistant, but her age and scarred hands make him skeptical. However, when he tastes a batch of her home-made sweet bean paste all his reservations melt away.

Despite his reserve, Sentaro quickly warms to Tokue and their customers quickly warm to their greatly improved dorayaki. Unfortunately, their pleasant days together will not last. According to the owner of the dorayaki stand, to whom Sentaro. is deeply indebted, Tokue is a long-time resident of the quarantine center-turned assisted living facility for Hanson’s disease patients. That would be leprosy, so she naturally wants Tokue out. Sentaro will drag his feet, but he is employee just as much as she is.

Sweet Bean could well be Kawase’s best and most accessible film to date. There is still the hushed vibe, but the drama is acutely human. Frankly, Sweet Bean is a lot like Japan’s Oscar winner Departures, but the emotions it draws out are even subtler and more complex. Despite the relatively brief amount of time Tokue spends with “the Boss” and Wakana, the connections they forge are deep and meaningful.

Kirin Kiki is quite remarkable as Tokue. Earnest yet down to earth, she keeps the film from descending into maudlin melodrama. Her real life granddaughter Kyara Uchida is also soulful beyond her years. Yet it is Masatoshi Nagase (the coach in Kano) who really lowers the boom down the stretch. There are no fireworks in Sweet Bean, but the central trio play off each other perfectly.

All the thoughtful hallmarks of Kawase’s auteurist style are present in Sweet Bean, but none of her wind-rustling-through-leaves excesses. Granted, there are plenty of character establishing scenes that do not necessarily advance the narrative (as when Wakana reads to a little boy in a library), but those are the moments that really stick with viewers. Like Tokue’s bean paste, Sweet Bean is lovingly crafted and richly rewarding. Highly recommended for general audiences, it opens this Friday (3/18) in New York, at the Lincoln Plaza.

TIFF ’14: Still the Water

There is nothing like discovering a body to hasten the coming of age process. Frankly, sixteen year-old Kaito could maybe use the kick-start. His prospective girlfriend Kyoko has also offered encouragement, but he has been slow to fully respond in Naomi Kawase’s Still the Water (clip here), which screens during the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.

On an island like Aami Oshima, typhoons are a fact of life. As a result, residents necessarily have a heightened awareness of the natural and spiritual worlds. This is particularly true of Kyoko’s mother Isa. As a shaman, she has always navigated between the divine and terrestrial planes. Unfortunately, she will soon crossover for good, as she slowly succumbs to a terminal illness.

Unlike, Kyoko, Kaito is not a native islander and he definitely does not share her affinity for the ocean. Having recently moved from Tokyo with his mother Misaki, following her divorce from his tattoo artist father, Kaito carried quite a bit of baggage with him. Yet, he slowly starts to form a connection with Kyoko, even though she is preparing herself for her mother’s imminent death.

Kawase is sort of a lover-her-or-hate-her filmmaker. If you require plotty narrative and zippy dialogue, than keep looking. However, if you are enraptured by grand natural vistas invested with sense of deeper mystical portent, this is the film for you. Like Kawase’s Mourning Forest (ironically a more demanding, yet more emotionally resonant work), Still looks lovely (although not quite as arresting as Forest). Cinematographer Yutaka Yamazaki gives it a shimmering, slightly nostalgic vibe not unlike the Kore-eda films he previously lensed, particularly Still Walking. Hashiken’s score also serves as an effective mood-setter, evoking western string ensemble chamber music, with a hint of traditional Japanese forms.

Despite Kawase’s loose approach to narrative, there is considerable inequity between the film’s two main forks, represented by Kyoko and Kaito. It is impossible not to be moved by Kyoko’s parents, savoring the family’s simple pleasures together while they can. As Kyoko, Jun Yoshinaga’s eyes seem to leap out of the screen and peer into your soul. Likewise, the rugged Tetta Sugimoto and ethereal Miyuki Matsuda are genuinely touching, conveying years of shared history in a word or a gesture.

In contrast, Kaito is supposed to be a bit of a pill—and Nijiro Murakami plays him accordingly. Considering the quiet and meditative tone of much of the film, his scenes of awkward melodrama stick out rather conspicuously.

At two hours almost on the dot, Still could have stood a bit of pruning, especially the inconsistent third act. Editor Tina Baz must have lost a lot of arguments to Kawase. It is an undisciplined film, but it is often beautiful. Those who appreciate “slow cinema” will find much to see and hear. Recommended circumspectly for Kawase’s admirers and filmgoers who prioritize atmosphere above all else, Still the Water screens again tomorrow (9/14) at this year’s TIFF.

First Look ’13: Inori

A small community in the mountainous Nara prefecture seems to live in perfect harmony with nature.  Actually, that is sort of a problem.  There ought to be more people around to throw off the balance.  Instead, only a rapidly aging remnant is left.  Director-cinematographer-editor Pedro González-Rubio quietly documents the villagers and their environment in Inori (trailer here), which screens tomorrow as a selection the Museum of the Moving Image’s second annual First Look film series.

Totsukawa village was always small, but it was once relatively bustling.  However, as economic opportunities dried up, the younger generations migrated to larger cities.  Now only senior citizens remain.  Some feel honor bound to stay and tend the graves of their parents.  Others simply cannot face the trauma of moving.

Ironically, some viewers might initially consider the village a verdant paradise.  Produced by celebrated Japanese filmmaker Naomi Kawase, Inori is more similar in look and tone to her contemplative feature Mourning Forest than her intensely personal documentaries.  González-Rubio vividly captures a sense of the area’s hushed stillness. At first it is quite striking, but it never really changes.  As a result, Inori’s mere seventy-two minutes become rather sluggish.  Time indeed passes slowly up here in the mountains.

Nevertheless, González-Rubio frames some lovely shots.  While his approach is strictly observational, Inori still engenders respect for the villagers.  These are not hicks.  They have worked hard all their lives, but they are educated and dignified.  Religious and/or spiritual, Shinto and Buddhist practice also appears to be strong within the remaining community.  Frankly, this was probably a nice place to live in more prosperous times.

Inori has images that could be sold as collectible prints, but as a viewing experience it is rather static.  More of a hike through the woods than a film, Inori is best saved for González-Rubio and Kawase’s most ardent admirers.  For those self-identifying cats, it screens tomorrow (1/6) in Astoria, Queens, as the 2013 edition of First Look continues at MoMI.

Extreme Private Ethos: Embracing & Tarachime

Film has clearly been a form of therapy for Naomi Kawase. Though experimental in nature, her documentaries have addressed some highly personal and painful family issues. While her themes are universal, the treatment and wincing pain of the search for her birth father and her complicated relationship with her adopted “mother” make the double bill of Kawase’s Embracing and Tarachime (roughly translated as “Birth Mother,” trailer here) arguably the least accessible program of Extreme Private Ethos, the Asia Society current series of acutely intimate Japanese documentaries.

Kawase has also made several acclaimed narrative features, including the quiet but deeply moving Cannes award winning Mourning Forest, but her reputation was forged with her documentary work. Essentially abandoned by both her long missing father and the birth mother who relinquished Kawase to her great aunt Uno (whom she calls Grandma), the filmmaker struggles with a sense of rootlessness in Embracing. Having traced her father’s whereabouts, she would like to re-establish contact, but her great aunt-grandmother-mother is against it. Somewhat conflicted, Kawase reconstructs her early childhood, but all she really has are a few old photographs and official census registrations. Ultimately, such evidence makes notions of family seem rather arbitrary, especially through Kawase’s warped lens.

Following the birth of her own child, Kawase examines her relationship with her adopted mother, directly rebuking the elderly woman’s emotional distance on-camera at critical juncture in Tarachime. Indeed, Kawase turns her focus away from nothing, including her son’s delivery, scenes of her great aunt in the ambulance and emergency room during a health scare, as well as brutally up-close shots of the ninety year old woman’s naked body.

Whereas Embracing exhibits some intriguing avant-garde stylistic devices, Tarachime is more visceral and discomfiting. It is a hard film to watch on several levels. In contrast to her later narrative work, which might be deliberately paced but have a stately beauty deserving a considerably wider audience, these short docs should probably be reserved for cineastes whose tastes run towards non-narrative experimentalism. Brutally honest, they are still quite appropriate selections for Extreme Private Ethos. About forty minutes each, Embracing and Tarachime screen together this Sunday (3/18) at the Asia Society on New York’s fashionable Upper Eastside.

Japan Cuts: Mourning Forest

The archetypal dark forest has long sheltered mysterious spirits in our collective imagination, manifesting in diverse sources ranging from Midsummer’s Night Dream to Twin Peaks. In Naomi Kawase’s Mourning Forest (Mogari no Mori), the woods are indeed haunted for two characters united through circumstances and in their grief. Winner of the 2007 Cannes Grand Prix, Forest (Japanese trailer here) is the demanding but prestigious opening night feature for the Japan Society’s Japan Cuts Festival, receiving its New York premiere tonight.

Clearly, Kawase is not a filmmaker to be rushed. Her story is simple, but she takes her time with it. Mourning her young son and spurned by her husband, Machiko takes employment in a friend’s remote home for the elderly. One of her apparently senile charges, Mr. Shigeko, initially takes exception to her presence, perhaps due to the similarity between her name and that of his late wife Mako. Eventually they form a bond, evidently based on their shared inner sorrow.

When Machiko ventures into the woods with Shigeko in search of his wife’s grave, the film hints at the supernatural, with the forest almost becoming a mystical entity onto itself. While the film seems to offer a dramatic clue as to how Machiko’s son perished, Kawase prefers ambiguity to neatly packaged moments of catharsis. She is also not afraid to let the camera linger over a beautiful visual, disregarding such mundane concerns as pacing, plot development, and dialogue.

Forest is poetic in its conception, benefiting from the honestly emotive performances of its two main leads. Shigeki Uda is quite convincing as the elderly lost soul, and Machiko Ono is heartbreaking as the grieving mother. Nakase does not make it easy for them either, allowing for little dialogue, while often filming at very close-range.

It is highly unlikely you will see Forest pop up at your local multiplex. It is a serious film by a serious director, featuring truly outstanding performances. While there are moments of emotional payoff, working through the film to get there is often an agonizingly slow process. For dogged cineastes, it is a high profile beginning to the Japan Cuts festival’s twelve days of contemporary Japanese film.