Naomi Kawase

Naomi Kawase was only 27 when she won the Camera d'Or at Cannes 97 and the FIPRESCI Prize at Rotterdam for her first feature film Moe no suzaku. Independently produced by young prolific producer Sento Takenori (who was to become her husband), with a splendid Super 16mm cinematography by veteran Masaki Tamura (Himatsuri, Tampopo, Eureka...), Moe no suzaku made Naomi Kawase one of the hottest newcoming directors in Japan, and one of the very few female directors in the limelight with, to a lesser extent, Naoe Gozu (Oshima 99), Tomoko Fujiwara (Louise: Her Departure on a Journey), Hisako Matsui (Yukie), Sachi Hamano (Midori) and Shimako Sato (Tale of the Vampire) - only 15 of the approximately 500 directors who are members of the Directors Guild of Japan.

What further distinguishes Naomi Kawase is the fact that she is not from Tokyo - she is from Nara, an area rich with palaces, temples, shrines and dwellings, where Kawase's non-urban cinema, dealing with tradition, roots, identity, past and present, can soar naturally. "After Suzaku, people thought of me as a peaceful person" she said in the Japanese Vogue. "But Hotaru is closer to myself. I wanted to make a film like Betty Blue or Empire of the Senses, that had an acute pain of love." In that sense, Hotaru emerged as a poignant love story between a stripper and a ceramist in the beautiful, lamenting landscapes of Nara. "Cinema is the mirror which reflects my sentiments" adds Kawase. Hotaru won the FIPRESCI prize at Locarno 2000 "for the intensity and originality of its personal and universal approach towards the conflict between tradition and modernity."

Did the prizes you got at Cannes and Rotterdam for Moe no Suzaku change a lot of things in your career?

They became a great strength for my following projects. Hotaru was made with a budget twice the size of Suzaku and I was able to work on it for one year.

Before this second feature film, you went on to make a strange documentary, Mange-kyo...

I wanted to separate myself from the world that I had created with Moe no suzaku, and return to myself and my roots and that's how I came to make a documentary called The Weald, and then Mange-kyo which was screened at Marseille last year.

What is The Weald?

You can call it the alternative to Suzaku. I shot it in the same location as for Suzaku, it's about six families living in that area, I did most of the camerawork, a lot of it was super 8.

Before Moe no Suzaku, you were known as an experimental filmmaker and documentary filmmaker. How do you situate yourself in the Japanese experimental scene?

I don't know exactly where I stand! I can only say that my name is known around these circles and that young people who have seen my work are inspired to make their own.

Have you taught in film schools?

Yes, my background includes four years of teaching in a film school. It was a specialized school for film and visual arts. There I was able to work with students and make experimental films and short films. Now I've stopped teaching there regularly but there are many universities and institutions that ask me to come and participate in their conferences.

What do you tell aspiring filmmakers?

Whether big or small, all films are films, you must as a filmmaker do the best you can within your own limits and fight for it. There is neither a situation or a place that will give you what you want, you have to go out and do it yourself, it's a matter of your own self will. So that's what I say to my students.

In Mange-kyo, you were looking for a conflict with photographer Arimoto Shinji in the process of making the film. But Arimoto Shinji didn't put up much fight. Are you nonetheless satisfied with your "opponent"?

I think he was the right choice. I was actually anticipating the weakness that came out in him. It's a weak point that is actually a very crucial part of all forms of expression.

Why does Mika Mifune, the daughter of Toshiro Mifune, disappear so fast from the film?

There's something about Mika's background that she cannot control. She's the daughter of a big star, and her mother was also controlling her schedule. These two factors didn't allow her the freedom that we would have liked to have in the film. She was allowed to come to the shooting for three days only, so in that sense I could say that as a filmmaker I was not able to work with her as much as I wanted.

Was it also a failure for her photographer Arimoto Shinji?

We both couldn't get into her as deeply as we wanted, so in that sense you could say it was a failure for both. But I do believe that something is appearing in the film about her, so perhaps it's not such a failure...

Hotaru, the tile of your second feature film, means fireflies. Do these glowing insects belong to your childhood memories?

As you know, Japan developed very quickly into an industrial country, and I myself grew up in a countryside area where fireflies were disappearing because of that development. So they aren't really one of my childhood memories

Have you seen Hotaru no Haka? (Grave of the Fireflies, Isao Takahata, 1988)

I see what you mean, but I haven't.

Would you say that Hotaru, with its epic 2h30 duration, is to be the top of your career?

I'd rather say that it is the beginning... (smiles)

Did you put a lot of yourself into the character of Ayako?

I certainly felt a great kinship with this character, and you might say that we found an echo in each other...

I think that your way of filming women's faces is extraordinary... Yuko Nakamura is as unforgettable in Hotaru as Machiko Ono is in Suzaku and Mange-kyo...

When I cast my actresses, I usually pay a lot of attention to their faces. Their faces, the intensity in their eyes is what interests me most.

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