In "Netemo Sametemo" (Asako I & II), director Ryusuke Hamaguchi portrays a woman who wavers between two men who look exactly like each other.
The film, which opens in cinemas around the country today, was entered into the competition category of the Cannes Film Festival this year.
"This film brings out completely different reactions from the audience, depending on the person," said Hamaguchi, who was looking forward to seeing how the film would be received by filmgoers.
The film is an adaptation of a romance novel by Tomoka Shibasaki. "The setting itself is almost classical, but it carefully depicts the realistic lives of the characters," Hamaguchi said of the novel. "There are elements at both ends of the spectrum, and there were surprises."
He tried to bring the novel's appeal into the film.
Peculiar approach
Masahiro Higashide, who eagerly hoped to appear in a film directed by Hamaguchi, took on the challenge of playing the two men. For the heroine, Hamaguchi selected up-and-coming actress Erika Karata.
Before filming began, the director took a peculiar approach that he also used with "Happy Hour" (2015), in which four women with virtually no acting experience together won the award for best actress at the Locarno Festival.
Hamaguchi let the cast members read their lines in a monotone and then filmed them as they showed their emotions for the first time in front of the camera and their reactions to their emotions, as if he were making a documentary.
He also held rehearsals for young cast members, including Higashide and Karata, about two months before filming started.
"I pondered about how I should prepare the right environment for Karata, [who has little acting experience], so that she could act freely and easily," he said.
The director added, "When Karata has a spontaneous reaction to something, everyone else accepts it as something truthful. Through this process, we saw the beginning of interaction and inter-reaction between those with ample acting experience and those without."
Hamaguchi also added an element of the Great East Japan Earthquake to the script, even though it doesn't appear in the novel. This reflects the idea of Sachiko Tanaka, who cowrote the script, with the earthquake described as a life-changing event in the lives of the heroine and other characters.
Hamaguchi said the earthquake reversed his sense of everyday life that today is like yesterday, and tomorrow will be like today. Instead, he gained a new perspective that yesterday and today can suddenly become completely different days. "I think it's this kind of sensation that underlies this film," he said.
Hamaguchi first made his name on the film scene with "Passion" (2008), which he created as his degree work for a master's course at the graduate school of the Tokyo University of the Arts. From that film to "Happy Hour" he depicted in his films romantic love between a man and a woman, which is about emotions and relationships that are beyond control. His choice of subject is partly due to his fondness of so-called trendy dramas on TV, which features the love life of young people. But there is also another reason.
"I am taking on the challenge to see what I can do within the boundary of a romantic drama that anyone can enjoy watching," he said.
"You can appreciate romantic films by relating it to yourself. What these people do -- is it acceptable? Can you forgive them? And why do you think so? When you delve into that, you can probably touch their lives," he said with a playful smile.
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