After the extraordinary international success of the Oscar-winning Drive My Car, writer-director Ryusuke Hamaguchi turned away from the noise and quietly made this small-scale independent film, a work of simplicity and grace about a rural community and the developers who want to built a “glamping” retreat in the woods. The protagonist, Takumi, is a taciturn woodsman whose natural authority the developers seek to co-opt… but things don’t quite work out that way. Hamaguchi invests this all-too familiar ecological scenario not with drama, but with a rapt attention to Takumi’s way of life: how he chops wood, forages for mushrooms, or takes the measure of an icy stream. That’s not to suggest that nothing happens — there is conflict; change; tragedy — but rather than declare its intentions the film seeks to embody the patient virtues of living in harmony with nature, invites us to absorb them, and reflect.
Grand Jury Prize, Venice 2023
Community Partner
Hitoshi Omika, Ryo Nishikawa, Ryuji Kosaka, Ayaka Shibutani, Hazuki Kikuchi
Japan
2023
Showcase
In Japanese with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Producer
Satoshi Takata
Screenwriter
Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Cinematography
Yoshio Kitagawa
Editor
Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Azusa Yamazaki
Production Design
Masato Nunobe
Original Music
Eiko Ishibashi
Director
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
Ryusuke Hamaguchi was born in Japan on December 16th, 1978. In 2008, Passion, his master degree graduate work from Tokyo University of Arts, was selected to the San Sebastian International Film Festival and Tokyo Filmex. In 2015, his film Happy Hour premiered at the 68th Locarno International Film Festival and won several awards. In 2021, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the 71st Berlinale. At the 74th edition of Cannes, Drive My Car won the Screenplay Prize and 3 independent prizes, including FIPRESCI. The following year it received 4 Academy Award nominations at the 94th Academy Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay. It won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.
Filmography: Passion (2008); Happy Hour (2015); Asako I&II (2018); Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021); Drive My Car (2021)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Turner & Constable
Filmed as a supplement to a blockbuster exhibition at Tate Britain happening right now, this doc in the popular Exhibition on Screen series allows us to view these competitive, complementary English landscape artists side by side.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
One of only a handful of live action children's films to capture the imaginations of generations, E.T. has a luminous warmth; it's a suburban symphony of emotion, and it's fascinating to revisit it in the light of The Fabelmans.
The President's Cake
Nine year old Lamia and her friend Saeed venture into the city to scrounge ingredients for a cake to celebrate Sadaam Hussein's birthday — a quest fraught with real peril in precarious times. Winner, Camera d'Or, Cannes.
Antonia's Line
This month's Pantheon selection spotlights the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the Dutch feminist filmmaker Marleen Gorris, and her charming, vibrant tale of an emancipated farmer who refuses to conform.