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JAPAN-FRANCE-FILM-SOCIAL-INTERVIEW
Cannes winner Kore-eda shines light on Japan’s hidden poor
TOKYO, May 31, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Veteran director Hirokazu Kore-eda says
his Cannes Palme d’Or-winning film “Shoplifters” aims to shine a light on
social problems in Japan, which he says are still under-portrayed in the
country’s cinema production.
In an interview with AFP in Tokyo, Kore-eda also said he aims to start
shooting his next film in Paris this year and has already auditioned some
actors for the roles.
Kore-eda scooped the top prize at the Cannes film festival with a movie
described as a “modern-day ‘Oliver Twist’,” about a bunch of misfits and
crooks in Tokyo who form a family.
The film was seen at Cannes as showing people finding comfort even in the
worst economic conditions and exposing how the state can fail individuals
struggling at the lower end of society.
Kore-eda said that “the problem of poverty” in Japan, the world’s third-
largest economy, “had an impact on the foreign viewer.”
“At the beginning of the century, when I went to foreign film festivals, I
was often told in a critical way that there not many films showing social or
political problems in Japanese cinema. It was seen as a fundamental
weakness,” he told AFP.
While the number of films taking on this difficult subject matter has
increased, the criticism stands, the 55-year-old said.
In his film, he said he was aiming “not to avoid the problem of poverty
that exists in the background of the Japanese society I live in.”
After winning fame with the Palme d’Or top prize in Cannes, Kore-eda said
he was starting to look beyond Japan, a “long-held” desire for him.
However, he admitted that filming in Paris would not be easy for this Tokyo
resident.
The Japanese capital is “a familiar place to me and therefore easy to shoot
in but with Paris, I don’t know its features, what feels right or wrong. I
don’t know anything.”
“I’ll go there to work out the lay of the land,” after “Shoplifter” opens
in Japan, he added.
“I’ve been contacted by some French actresses and I started to write with
them in mind. There is no official announcement yet, but I will start
shooting this year,” he revealed.
As in “Shoplifters”, Kore-eda has constructed his own cinematic family of
actors who appear in many of his films, including Hiroshi Abe, and Kirin
Kiki, who often plays nasty grandmother figures.
He said he had some concerns about working with non-Japanese given he “only
speaks Japanese” and admitted it would be a “big challenge” to shoot with
foreign actors.
“I was 50 percent hope, 50 percent fear, but as the auditions went on, the
hope ratio won out. I reckon we can make it work.”
BSS/AFP/RY/1602 hrs