Latest news with #Shoplifters'
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Renoir' Review: An 11-Year-Old Girl Ponders the Mysteries of the Universe in Chie Hayakawa's Extremely Low-Key Coming-of-Age Drama
An article published in a 1982 edition of the research journal Social Science & Medicine found that an overwhelming percentage of Japanese doctors neglected to share terminal diagnoses with their patients, as they felt it was unethical to condemn someone to a death sentence. That information is only glancingly alluded to in Chie Hayakawa's 'Renoir,' a diaphanous coming-of-age story that's only clouded by the burden of unbecoming (no surprise to anyone familiar with Hayawaka's dystopian euthanasia drama 'Plan 75'), but the principle behind it haunts the film's young heroine all summer long. Her name is Fuki (gifted 11-year-old Yui Suzuki), she lives in a sunny Tokyo suburb at some point during the country's transitional period in the late 1980s, and she's almost subconsciously convinced that people aren't telling her something. There's a gap between her and the rest of the world, and it only grows wider after her dad ('Shoplifters' star Lily Franky) is admitted to the hospital during the final months of his bout with cancer. It's not as if the girl doesn't know about death (her short story 'I'd Like to Be an Orphan' has one of her teachers asking a lot of questions answered by the story), but the distance between recognizing mortality and living in its shadow is vast, and Fuki is desperate for someone to help close it for her. More from IndieWire 'Highest 2 Lowest' Review: Spike Lee Returns with a Jarringly Fun and Upbeat Riff on One of Akira Kurosawa's Bleakest Films 'Splitsville' Review: Open-Relationship Comedy from 'The Climb' Team Hits All the Right Notes Of course, Fuki doesn't know what she doesn't know, and her mother Utako (Ishida Hikari) — who often talks as if her daughter weren't able to hear her — has no interest in telling her. 'Do we cry because we feel sorry for the dead,' the girl asks herself in a rare snippet of voiceover, 'or because we feel sorry for ourselves?' Her only answer is to not cry at all; to keep a straight face and listen for the secret frequencies of the universe for guidance. Inspired by an American mentalist she sees on TV, the ever-imaginative Fuki becomes obsessed with telepathy; it starts with guessing what card someone might be thinking of, and quickly evolves into 'hypnotizing' a grief-stricken neighbor into talking about her late husband. Later, Fuki will neigh at a horse in an effort to understand them, listen to her own voice echo around a tunnel in the hopes of hearing something she couldn't distill from her thoughts, and even meet a grown man from a telephone dating service in a singularly harrowing sequence that reflects Hayakawa's continued fascination with the darkest parts of the human psyche. It's a fascination that's on full display from the opening moments of 'Renoir,' and renders the entire film allergic to the cuteness that seeps into so many coming-of-age stories like it. Animated by the creative spark that pops and fizzes behind Suzuki's eyes at all times, Fuki remains a compelling figure despite her refusal to betray her feelings to the outside world, and 'Renoir' leans on the character's quiet mystery as the movie drifts from one semi-connected episode to the next. Hayakawa is a plaintive storyteller who refuses to indulge in emotional cheats of any kind, and would rather a scene be impenetrably oblique than overexplain its purpose. 'Renoir' may not be quite as sterile as 'Plan 75' (a low bar), but the film is reserved enough for its title — a reference to 'the painter of happiness,' whose work is glimpsed for a half-second in the background of one shot — to feel like a perverse joke at Fuki's expense. It's possible that Hayakawa may have been inspired by the warm lighting found in some of Renoir's work, but there are few moments in which she allows her movie to indulge in the effervescence of a Tokyo summer, and even fewer in which she conflates the country's rapid transition with the equally seismic changes that befall her young heroine. Hayakawa's script eschews any sweeping commentary in favor of a more honest and incidental portrait of growing up — one that would rather be true to the reality of Fuki's experience than mold it to fit the poetic forms of adult memory. The film's plotting is elliptical (Utako's maybe affair with the counselor at her anger management seminar is filtered through a child's understanding), its direction unimposing to the point of feeling unformed, and its poignancy more rooted in the slow build of Fuki's snowballing isolation than it is in the moment when someone finally breaks through it. There are a handful of memorable episodes along the way, such as the nightmare fuel of Fuki's aforementioned pedophile encounter, and the much nicer sequence in which she spends a day at the track with her father, but incidents like that only have so much value to a story whose beats only matter so far as they help broker Fuki's connection to the world beyond her. As would be the case in real life, there's no single incident that explains how Fuki grows over the course of that one fateful summer (even if one especially meaningful gesture towards the end helps pull her out of her silent isolation). But 'Renoir' — with its faint traces of sentiment, and complete absence of sentimentality — delicately articulates the girl's inner child in a way that allows us to feel it expand across the season. Life can try to keep its secrets from her, but it's only a matter of time before someone as curious and deprived as Fuki is able to discover them all for herself. 'Renoir' premiered in Competition at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution. Want to stay up to date on IndieWire's film and critical thoughts? to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings — all only available to subscribers. Best of IndieWire The 25 Best Alfred Hitchcock Movies, Ranked Every IndieWire TV Review from 2020, Ranked by Grade from Best to Worst
Gulf Today
09-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Gulf Today
Hirokazu Kore-eda's Netflix series ‘Asura' is transformative
Sometimes, a great new television series arrives with loud announcements and general heralding; sometimes, one slips in quietly as if on slippered feet, declining to call attention to itself. I don't know why there weren't pronouncements from the hilltops when 'Asura,' the new series from the great Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda ('Nobody Knows,' 'Our Little Sister,' 'Shoplifters' and many more) arrived on Netflix in January, but nonetheless here it is, and we can only be grateful. Kore-eda, who's been making feature films since the 1990s, is a master of the quiet moments of family life: a sibling's unspoken resentments, a boy who dreams of bringing his divorced parents back together, a mother longing for her child, a parent's slow fading away. All of these are beautifully in play in 'Asura,' and the longer TV format (the series has seven episodes, each about an hour long) gives time for the plot elements to simmer, like the delicious-looking food frequently served during the scenes. (Everyone in 'Asura' is always delightfully hungry.) Set in 1979 Tokyo, and based on an original television series from that year, 'Asura' is the story of the four Takezawa sisters: Tsunako (Rie Miyazawa), a widowed teacher of traditional flower arranging; Makiko (Machiko Ono), a homemaker and mother of two teens; Takiko (Yū Aoi), an unmarried librarian; and Sakiko (Suzu Hirose, grown up from 'Our Little Sister'), a young restaurant worker in love with a boxer (Kisetsu Fujiwara). As the series begins, the women have learned something shocking: Their father Kotaro (Jun Kunimura) — 'a doddering old fool who can't shop on his own,' as one of the sisters describes him — is having an affair. But this is far from the only secret among the Takezawa sisters, as we learn over seven hours — and as we become part of the family as well. Like the March sisters of 'Little Women,' the four Takezawa sisters form ever-shifting pairs and alliances, connected by the metallic ring of a '70s-era telephone and by their own shared past. Life-changing events happen: A man calls his wife, thinking she's his lover; a young woman collapses at work; a fire blazes out of control; a woman points a gun at her husband and his mistress; a young man lies in a hospital bed, unmoving. But, as in real life, the drama exists side by side with the mundane: sisters having tea, or giggling together, or sorting through the belongings of someone who is gone. Kore-eda's observational style is simply to drop us into this family and let us figure out the connections, and you might spend much of the first episode, as I did, trying to sort out who's who. But once you're in, you're all in. Miyazawa, as oldest sister Tsunako, gives a particularly mesmerizing performance; this woman, who has a way of holding her face as if she's carefully arranged it beforehand, has a rather more complicated life than her traditional clothing and serene manner would indicate. And Aoi's quiet Taki, always seeming to be on the sides watching, is gradually revealed to be the heart of the family. 'This sister thing is so strange,' she says at one point, reflecting. 'The envy and jealousy can be so strong, yet when my sisters are unhappy, in the end, it's unbearable.' Watching 'Asura' (whose title is only explained in the series' final scene, so I won't give it away here) is a gentle and often transformative experience — like Kore-eda's movies but even more immersive. The cinematography, softly faded as befits the 1970s setting, is particularly artful, with the camera often peeking through windows or around shelves like a quiet observer. You find yourself disappearing into the shots: Sakiko driving on a wooded road, the trees' limbs seeming to blend into hers; a bonfire that lights up the faces of those around it as if by magic; the delicate drop of an apple peel as a knife twists away from the fruit. And I found myself fascinated by one shot of Tsunako's hands at work, carefully trimming a red-blossomed branch, paring away all excess, until only what matters remains.
