1997 ‘萌の朱雀’ Directed by Naomi Kawase
Depicts the life of a family in a remote Japanese timber village. Family head Tahara Kozo lives with his mother Sachiko, wife Yasuyo, nephew Eisuke and young daughter Michiru. Economic recession and failed development plans cause tragedy in the family.
France
Cannes Film Festival
Japan
France
Austria
Belgium
Austria
Belgium
France
Japan
A family drama without the drama. Spirituality without moralizing. Suzaku is for all accounts one of the most zen films I've seen without trying, perhaps the most important aspect of one.
In here people don't explain themselves, at least not through words: silence, faces, bodily expression and indirectness are enough. Everyone has an understanding of everyone else's standing, and we end up able to glance at this family portrait not through the details of the individual trees but through the collective swaying of the whole grove.
Like watching life unfold directly on the screen, Suzaku is able to make family matters seem at once the most emotionally-powerful thing yet also transient and inconsequential. Things happen, they affect us all, and then we move on. Nothing ultimately matters but it's not a lesson in tough love, rather how we must breathe in the moments we have.
15 years later. That jump to that point in Suzaku brings me back to a feeling that has long been felt, and will soon be felt again. It brings me immense sadness, it's a moment of change, that feeling brings to me. Natural colors and environments. Hide-and-seek song. The mountains and houses are ageless. People do, however age. The camera of a time gone, documented. Tunnels bring you back, even if sadness is included. One of the finest directorial debuts. Holding on is forever.
This is one of the most tender films I've ever seen... It's pure beauty. Naomi Kawase's cinema is about people in front of something so much bigger than them. This bigger is abstract but it's perfectly expressed in images which are full of emotions; human in front of nature in the world which seems to have forgotten all about nature. Location plays extremely important part in the film since in it the memories live forever even if time goes by. Children's singing and laughter echoes in the mountains, love stays there. Kawase never even once uses dialogue to express "philosophy". Characters live their lives and when they talk, they talk about their life. In their talk they never stop wondering…
Day #16 of Japanuary!
Continuing with the theme of watching Japanese films throughout January, I decided to watch a film directed by Naomi Kawase.
Suzaku is an underrated piece of heartbreaking cinema. Think of the family drama elements of a Koreeda or Ozu film, but with the languid pacing and attention to nature that you would get in an Apichatpong Weerasethakul film. I found this to be the perfect morning movie, as it was quite the meditative experience.
Not much happens, but the things that do happen (and some of the things that don’t happen) have an enormous impact on the family that is portrayed. It’s a film with a lot of nuances and subtleties, and if you aren’t on the…
Winner of the Caméra d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, this is the most wonderful and sublime debut feature of Naomi Kawase, the only Japanese female director I'm familiar with. It subtly touches on a number of issues, most especially the dissolution of a family due to encroachment of modernity, a theme often dealt by old Japanese masters. Kawase, who's also made a number of personal experimental films and documentaries, employs both 8mm and 35mm stock and different formal approaches for this portrait. A quiet and contemplative film that is both melancholic and hopeful.
Suzaku, Naomi Kawase’s debut film, is a nice mediation on death, family, memory, and dreams. It touches on all these universal topics in an attempt to achieve a deeper understanding in life, but ultimately, Kawase never really has a clear focus on what she wants to achieve.
Kawase is a great visual director, but not a great writer. There are some shots in this film that are downright gorgeous. In the first half of the film when the dad, his daughter, and his nephew walk down the tunnel, the way the light shines into the tunnel glows with a luscious green, implying there may be hope in the future. And Kawase doesn’t use any artificial lighting, only natural light, giving her…
The theme of modernity slowly wearing a family down, disintegrating that which they knew as life overtakes them, is a topic as old to Japanese cinema as any. But none of the key contributors to the theme, be it the old masters like Ozu or Mizoguchi, or contemporaries like Koreeda, have Kawase's textured grace.
Suzaku is a film where there is no need for discussion about the endless march of time, its inevitable conclusion accepted when we see a generation leap in a scant few steps. Family is grounded in not just blood but ties to the land, and though tears roll by as the foundation of lineage slowly wears away there's an unspoken comfort in knowing that the memories…
Easily one of the best female debuts I've seen, Naomi Kawase's Caméra d'Or-winning Suzaku is a subtle drama that flows beautifully - like that of an Ozu piece. The beauty in every last moment of Suzaku is simply astounding, and I already want to see more of Naomi Kawase's films. From a film much like this, she is reminding me already of a female Yasujiro Ozu in a modern age, and if I end up loving more of her films like I did with this one, she can even become an all-time favourite of my very own.
It is a rather quiet piece, but Kawase allows room for her characters to speak more through their actions, and just the beauty…
There’s a particular strand of cinema that has been quite typical of Japan’s output since at least the 1930s. I’m speaking of observational drama. And by that I mean, the kind that follows a set of characters, usually a family (or extended version thereof).
Typically, we’re provided with no formal introduction and little or no context. But the information is there if one pays attention; the manner of the relationships, the characters’ preoccupations, a hint at their inner lives and so on.
Of course, Japanese culture lends itself well to this kind of thing because it’s much less demonstrative than, say, its American equivalent, where feelings tend to be more readily expressed.
In the case of Suzaku as with many…
my bestfriend's laughter
running up the mountain
vegetables born from summer
breakfast smells so good again
a prized collection of bugs
early morning singing
a tight family picnic hug
childhood almost slipping
a greener, greater perhaps
veiled promises of opportunity
waiting alone at the bus stop
as first love arrives from memory
one by one, people depart
oh, how much time has passed
everything's changed, where to start
i didn't know that picnic was our last
Speechless, staring, parting, recorded time passing, not omniscient narration, five times of music, structured passages brewing discrete emotions. Naomi Kawase has some symbols derived from personal experience and memory, such as the nature of the countryside, the wind and the grass, the ignorant emotions of boys and girls, the departure of father or mother, and the songs of the kind old man. In her mid twenties, she created her own unique aesthetic concept with this irresistable and to die for meditative film poem. The camera is like a family member, silently touching the slight rhythm of their emotions. Nara presents a soft oily texture at your fingertips, which has never been seen outside the mountains. But it gradually changed the…
