“WHEN The LoCarno Film Festival at the End of July Univeiled Director Naomi Kawase’s (Embracing, The Mourning Forest) New Film Yakushima’s Illusion (L’Illusion De Yakyn) (Corsage, The Dead Don’t Hurt, Hot Milk), As A Late Addration To Its Competition Lineup, IT Was Considerked A Surprise and A Coup. Not Much Was Known”, – WRITE: www.hollywoodReporter.com
Not Much Was Known About the Movie, But The Involvement of Two Big Names in Independent Film Had Industry Insiders Intrigueded.
“Corry, A French Coordinator of Pediatric Heart Transplants, Is Sent to Japan Where Organ Donation Remains Taboo,“ Reads a synopsis “AS she fights to save a young Boy, Her Partner Jin, A Photographer from Yakushima, Suddenly Vanishes. He Becomes a ‘Johatsu,’ AS The Japanese Call The 80.000 PEAPLE PEAPLE. Corry Faces A Double Ordeal: Saving A Child While Coping with The Loss of the Man She Loves. ”
AS KAWASE SAYS IN A DIRETOR’S NOTE: “THRUGH A Foreign Medical Professional’s Eyes, This Story Weaves Time and Space to Reveal Post-Pandemic Shifts in Human Connection And Japane and Japane Passed to Future Generations. ”
Johatsu, or “Evaporation,” is the Word for Japanese People Who Disappear Voluntarily to escape Diflicult Situations, Including Financial Debt, Family Conflict, Or.
Krieps, Portraying Corry, Stars Along with Japan’s Kanichiro as Jin in the French-, Japanese-, and English-Language Film that is a co-reproduction Between France, Japan, Belg. Cinefrance International is Handling International Sales.
Ahead of the Film’s Locarno World Premiere on Friday, Kawase and Krieps Talked to Thr about Yakushima’s IllusionITS Inspirations, Their Collaboration, and Presenting A Film Full of Heart to a World Full of Conflict.
“Durying Covid, with All The Borders Being Closed and Everything, I Was Really Thinking About How People Connect with Each Other,“ Kawase Tells Thr Via a translator. “At the Same Time, I was Thinking About the Situations in a WHICH People Are Pulled Apart from Each Other, Including The Phenomenon of ‘Evaporation,’ People Disappearing, and Tht. Heart Transplants, It Means That Children May Die Before Their Paarents. ” In botcses, johatsu and heart transplants, “we have a very specialistic situation in japan any the families have a dECING OF TESE FAMILIA.
Casting Krieps Was A CHANCE TO BRING IN ACCOMPLISHED ACTRESS WHO CAN HELP Add An Outsider’s View in the Movie. “WHEN I WAS DISCUSING WITH My FRENCH AGENT HOW TO DEAL WITH THESE VERY VERY SPECIFIC CONDITIONS IN JAPAN THRUGH MORE OBJECTIVE PERSPECTIVES, VICYY KRIIIES ‘NAME CAME UP INVERS.
Krieps was happy to take on the challenge. “Shortly Before the Film, I Felt A Calling. Suddenly, Japan Was on My Mind,“ She Tells Thr. “I DON’T KNOW WHY, AND I REMEMBER SAYING TO SOMEONE, ‘I THINK I NEED TO GO TO JAPAN.’ And Probably A Week Later, I Received A Call from Agent Agent Naomi Was Looking for An Actress, and I Went for An Audition Because I Thought I Need to Go and MET.
That and the idea of going to japan “felt like being under a spell or some enchantment,” The Actress Recalls. “Maybe It’s The Culture and the Old Traditions That Are So Powerful, and How Japan Deals with Ghosts.”
Krieps Had Just Lost Someone “Extremely Close to Me” Before Reading The Script, SO it felt Natural to take on the Role. “It wasn’t like a casting. We Met, and We Both Knew that We have a similear Understanding of Death and Maybe Ghosts and the Connection of Nature and Life and Death.
Kawase Onthen Mixes A Documentarian’s Eye with Fiction for a Unique style. She Brough The Same Approach to Yakushima’s Illusion. “IN MOST OF MY FILMS, I ACTUALLY HAVE MY Characters Stay and Spend Some Time In The Setting of the Film,” The Filmmaker Tells Thr. “In this Case, Vicky Actulely Stayed in the Hospital Where We Were Shooting for A While, and She Actual Wowe The Docator’s Garments, Had Her Own Office, and Sheewit.
The Child Actors in the Movie Did the Same. “They would move around with the IV and everything, as if they realy were patients in the hospital,” Kawase Added. “In this setting, The Communication and Interaction Happy Really Naturally.” Some Real Interations from That Period Made It Into The Final Film Dialogue.
Naomi Kawase Courtesy of leslie kee
“We Were Very Free to Just Explore Each Moment As A Moment,” KRIIES TELLS Thr. “Some dialogues in a scene would be improvised. For Example, One Thing I Was Actual Saying to Jin Was Half Improv.”
She Even Found Herself Getting Lost in the Moment and this World. “I do sometimes feel like I Talk to Trees, and I have in my past and present Life been Close to Grief, or Let’s Say I Grieve in A Way that I am very aware of my grief,” KIEPS. “SO SomeTimes I Didn’t Know What Time It Was, And I Was Just there. I THINK THAT’S WHAT MAKES IT SOCUMENTARY Style, In Addition To [the fact that] Some of the People AROUND US WERE REAL DOCTORS. So there was always a mix of bot Worlds. ”
The Japanese Title of the Movie Includes the Japanese Word for Illusion, But Its Meaning Differs From The English Meaning. “IT’S PROHING ALIKING THAT ONCE WAS, WHICH IS A BIT DIFFERENT,” KAWASE HIGHLIGHTS. “IT’s Even More Twisted Thank the English Title, Because the Japanese Title Basical Is Saying That Illusion Is Not There, But It Also Was. Almost Feels Like Dream.
For Example, Does or Did Jin Really Exist in the Real World? “SO, itals withis this experience that Some Things Happen, and You Don’t Really Know What Is Real OR NOT, AND IT’S ALMOST A PARADOX IN THAT SENSE,” EMPHASIZIZIZES KAWASE. “There Are Many Layers, WHICH Are Often Quite Intenationally
Krieps Chimes in: “Who Are We to Know What Is Real and What Is Not Real and What Actual EXISTED?
With it focus on the heart and Connections, Yakushima’s Illusion Feels Like A Very Timely Film. How does Kawase Think About That? “Because of the Shared Experience of Covid, People Really Desired to Connect, Have Real Connections with People,“ The Filmmaker Says. “But What Actuly Has Been HapPening Is That’s More More and More Division. People Are Become More Self-Centered, and As A Result, Exclassing the Other, Otherness. Connect People Who Have Passed Away, Who Have Died and Those Who Are Still Alive, For Example, And Children Who Can Only Live in A Hospital and People Who Know.
CONCLUDES KAWASE: “The Character Corry Is A Foreign Element of That Comes Into This Hospital Environment. But Somehow this Foreign Element Also Brings In New Perspects and Wh, WHE, WHICH, WHICH Help People Go Towards Something Better.
And Krieps Offer: “The Movie Has Many Meanings, and One Is About Heart, in the Sense of Open Your Heart.”
Concluded The Star: “I Think What Society Is MOSTLY Suffering from Is People Getting More and More Lonely Because they Cannot Connect on a Heart Level. And Program, TECHESSS But Progress on the Heart Level Is Slowing Down, and that Creates A Big Crevasse. ”