{"id":66380,"date":"2025-08-13T11:33:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T11:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/66380\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T11:33:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T11:33:07","slug":"naomi-kawase-vicky-krieps-film-explores-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/66380\/","title":{"rendered":"Naomi Kawase, Vicky Krieps Film Explores Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWhen the Locarno Film Festival<\/a> at the end of July<\/a> unveiled director Naomi Kawase<\/a>\u2019s (Embracing,\u00a0The Mourning Forest) new film Yakushima\u2019s Illusion (L\u2019Illusion de Yakushima), starring none other than Vicky Krieps<\/a> (Corsage,\u00a0The Dead Don\u2019t Hurt,\u00a0Hot Milk), as a late addition to its competition lineup<\/a>, it was considered a surprise and a coup.<\/p>\n

\n\tNot much was known about the movie, but the involvement of two big names in independent film had industry insiders intrigued.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cCorry, a French coordinator of pediatric heart transplants, is sent to Japan where organ donation remains taboo,\u201d reads a synopsis of the film on the Locarno<\/a> festival website. \u201cAs she fights to save a young boy, her partner Jin, a photographer from Yakushima, suddenly vanishes. He becomes a \u2018Johatsu,\u2019 as the Japanese call the 80,000 people who disappear overnight each year. Corry faces a double ordeal: saving a child while coping with the loss of the man she loves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs Kawase says in a director\u2019s note: \u201cThrough a foreign medical professional\u2019s eyes, this story weaves time and space to reveal post-pandemic shifts in human connection and Japan\u2019s lasting views on life and death passed to future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJohatsu, or \u201cevaporation,\u201d is the word for Japanese people who disappear voluntarily to escape difficult situations, including financial debt, family conflict, or social pressures.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tKrieps, portraying Corry, stars along with Japan\u2019s Kanichiro as Jin in the French-, Japanese-, and English-language film that is a co-production between France, Japan, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Cinefrance International<\/a> is handling international sales.<\/p>\n

\n\tAhead of the film\u2019s Locarno world premiere on Friday, Kawase and Krieps talked to THR about Yakushima\u2019s Illusion, its inspirations, their collaboration, and presenting a film full of heart to a world full of conflict.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDuring COVID, with all the borders being closed and everything, I was really thinking about how people can connect with each other,\u201d Kawase tells THR via a translator. \u201cAt the same time, I was thinking about the situations in which people are pulled apart from each other, including this phenomenon of \u2018evaporation,\u2019 people disappearing, and then later of heart transplants. In the case of heart transplants, it means that children may die before their parents.\u201d In both cases, Johatsu and heart transplants, \u201cwe have a very specific situation in Japan where the families have certain control when deciding the death of these family members,\u201d Kawase explains. <\/p>\n

\n\tCasting Krieps was a chance to bring in an accomplished actress who can help add an outsider\u2019s view in the movie. \u201cWhen I was discussing with my French agent how to deal with these very specific conditions in Japan through more objective perspectives, Vicky Krieps<\/a>\u2018 name came up in the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKrieps was happy to take on the challenge. \u201cShortly before the film, I felt a calling. Suddenly, Japan was on my mind,\u201d she tells THR. \u201cI don\u2019t know why, and I remember saying to someone, \u2018I think I need to go to Japan.\u2019 And probably a week later, I received a call from a French agent that Naomi was looking for an actress, and I went for an audition because I thought I needed to go and meet this woman. I had seen her movies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat and the idea of going to Japan \u201cfelt like being under a spell or some enchantment,\u201d the actress recalls. \u201cMaybe it\u2019s the culture and the old traditions that are so powerful, and how Japan deals with ghosts.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tKrieps had just lost someone \u201cextremely close to me\u201d before reading the script, so it felt natural to take on the role. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t like a casting. We met, and we both knew that we had a similar understanding of death and maybe ghosts and the connection of nature and life and death,\u201d Krieps explains. <\/p>\n

\n\tKawase often mixes a documentarian\u2019s eye with fiction for a unique style. She brought the same approach to Yakushima\u2019s Illusion. \u201cIn most of my films, I actually have my characters stay and spend some time in the setting of the film,\u201d the filmmaker tells THR. \u201cIn this case, Vicky actually stayed in the hospital where we were shooting for a while, and she actually wore the doctor\u2019s garments, had her own office, and she would actually interact with the children there.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tThe child actors in the movie did the same. \u201cThey would move around with the IV and everything, as if they really were patients in the hospital,\u201d Kawase added. \u201cIn this setting, the communication and interaction happened really naturally.\u201d Some real interactions from that period made it into the final film dialogue.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tNaomi Kawase<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Leslie Kee<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe were very free to just explore each moment as a moment,\u201d Krieps tells THR. \u201cSome dialogues in a scene would be improvised. For example, one thing I was actually saying to Jin was half improv.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe even found herself getting lost in the moment and this world. \u201cI do sometimes feel like I talk to trees, and I have in my past and present life been close to grief, or let\u2019s say I grieve in a way that I am very aware of my grief,\u201d Krieps shares. \u201cSo sometimes I didn\u2019t know what time it was, and I was just there. I think that\u2019s what makes it so documentary style, in addition to [the fact that] some of the people around us were real doctors. So there was always a mix of both worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Japanese title of the movie includes the Japanese word for illusion, but its meaning differs from the English meaning. \u201cIt\u2019s something like an illusion that once was, which is a bit different,\u201d Kawase highlights. \u201cIt\u2019s even more twisted than the English title, because the Japanese title basically is saying that the illusion is not there, but it also was there. So it\u2019s sort of the combination of this sense of reality, but also imagination that almost feels like dream. And so it really goes back and forth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor example, does or did Jin really exist in the real world? \u201cSo, it deals with this experience that some things happen, and you don\u2019t really know what is real or not, and it\u2019s almost a paradox in that sense,\u201d emphasizes Kawase. \u201cThere are many layers, which are often quite intentionally made ambiguous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKrieps chimes in: \u201cWho are we to know what is real and what is not real and what actually existed? Once it\u2019s gone, it all becomes an illusion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWith its focus on the heart and connections, Yakushima\u2019s Illusion feels like a very timely film. How does Kawase think about that? \u201cBecause of the shared experience of COVID, people really desired to connect, have real connections with people,\u201d the filmmaker says. \u201cBut what actually has been happening is that there\u2019s more and more division. People are becoming more self-centered, and as a result, excluding the other, otherness. So, through the film, I really want to attempt to 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 the world outside of the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tConcludes Kawase: \u201cThe character Corry is a foreign element that comes into this hospital environment. But somehow this foreign element also brings in new perspectives and values, which may, when things are connected, help people go towards something better. So that was sort of the hope that I had.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd Krieps offered: \u201cThe movie has many meanings, and one is about heart, in the sense of open your heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tConcluded the star: \u201cI think what society is mostly suffering from is people getting more and more lonely because they cannot connect on a heart level. And progress, technology-wise, is moving super-fast, but progress on the heart level is slowing down, and that creates a big crevasse.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Locarno Film Festival at the end of July unveiled director Naomi Kawase\u2019s (Embracing,\u00a0The Mourning Forest) new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,75,77,34428,34429,337,42256,42257],"class_list":["post-66380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-international","tag-locarno","tag-locarno-film-festival","tag-movies","tag-naomi-kawase","tag-vicky-krieps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}