Deneuve made ‘Truth’ reality, says Kore-eda
‘Thieves’ a lesson
LOS ANGELES, Oct 3, (RTRS): Japanese director
Hirokazu Kore-eda found the pieces magically falling into place for his film, “The Truth”, even though he had to revive a long-dormant script, get renowned actress Catherine Deneuve on board and overcome a language barrier to pull it off.
French actress Juliette Binoche had been urging Kore-eda, who won the Palme d’Or for “Shoplifters” at last year’s Cannes film festival, to make a film with her for several years but nothing had got off the ground.
Inspiration finally struck for Kore-eda on a flight back from Paris: the film, based on a theatre script he began in 2003, would be set in France with Deneuve and Binoche as mother and daughter.
“I thought we couldn’t make the film unless it was Catherine Deneuve,” Kore-eda told Reuters, saying only she could have played the role of Fabienne, a grande dame of French cinema still active in movies.
“If it was her then we could make it a reality.”
“The Truth,” which hits Japanese cinemas on Oct 11 after it premiered at the Venice film festival, features Fabienne, who has just published her memoirs and is hosting her screenwriter daughter Lumir (Binoche) and TV actor son-in-law Hank (Ethan Hawke) on a visit from New York.
Memories
But painful memories and tensions between mother and daughter resurface when Fabienne’s book reveals more lies than the truth mentioned in its title, “La Verite”.
Kore-eda had feared Deneuve would turn down the role but sensed her enthusiasm at a meeting where he showed her bits of the still incomplete screenplay.
“She was saying things like, ‘It’s really interesting but maybe you should fix this part,’ or, ‘Filming’s going to be in Paris, right? You know I can’t leave Paris,’ so that’s when I knew she was up for it.”
Kore-eda’s admiration for the “Belle de Jour” actress did not go unnoticed.
“I think the click came when he met with Catherine, I think he had a huge admiration for her, he was like a little boy seeing her coming on the set,” Binoche said.
Binoche said she was thrilled to finally work with Kore-eda.
“For me, Kore-eda is like Anton Chekhov of nowadays and he has this quality of being subtle, of getting into real themes in families that hurt so bad,” she said.
“And yet you’ve got to find a way to love all those complexities and tragedies and all. And so he’s able to really develop those relationships and situations.”
Still to be resolved after the casting, however, was the matter of filming in another country and in a foreign language for the first time.
Kore-eda wrote the screenplay in Japanese and then worked on the French translation with Lea Le Dimna, his Japanese-French interpreter for the past five years. He had complete faith she would nail the nuances.
“If I hadn’t met her I don’t think I would have had the confidence to do this project,” Kore-eda added. “I think this project probably succeeded because of the kind of presence she brought.”
Despite its setting, “The Truth” largely unspools within Fabienne’s home and avoids stereotypical Paris locations such as the Eiffel Tower and ChampsElysees – which Kore-eda called a trap foreign filmmakers often fell into.
“I wanted to shoot Paris from the perspective of ordinary people there and I made a point of avoiding all that.”
Kore-eda said he had other projects in development but after five films in five years, it was time to ease the pace and hold off on any decisions for six months.
“It’s been a good run with a film every year, but it’ll be tough to keep going at that rate.”
Audiences watching Busan’s opening night film “The Horse Thieves” will get to see a universal and somewhat linear tale of greed, cruelty and man’s uneasy place in nature. Behind the scenes, however, it was a learning and co-operative experience between film makers from different cultures.
A rare Kazakhstan-Japan co-production, “Horse Thieves” was co-directed by Yerlan Nurmukhambetov and Japan’s Lisa Takeba. It stars Samal Yeslyamova, Cannes prize winner for her performance in “Ayka,” opposite Japanese heart throb Moriyama Morai, known for his roles in “Rage” and 2004 smash hit “Crying out Love in the Center of the World”.
Having agreed to cooperate, the two directors held multiple, prolonged Internet phone calls in order to shape the story and the script. They examine the consequences that flow from the slaying of a horse farmer who had taken his flock to market.
“Our initial plan on the set was for a division of labor, with Yerlan (Nurmukhambetov) directing the Kazakh cast, and me directing the Japanese talent,” said Takeba. “However, things evolved and Yerlan, himself an actor, came to handle the performances, while I became more responsible for things like continuity.”
Flexibility
Other kinds of flexibility were also necessary, as the story was revised during production. Where Takeba sought a dramatic ending, Nurmukhambetov favored an emphasis on family and the boy whose father is killed. Instead, they settled for a fade out that intercuts action and static shots focused on paintings. “It really showed me something about flexibility that (Nurmukhambetov) was able to change the story while we were making the picture. In Japan, everything to do with making a film must be planned out beforehand,” said Takeba.
Moriyama revealed that back in Japan, prior to the shoot, he had spent much time discussing his role with Takeba. (Moriyama appears in the second reel as a mysterious stranger, whose role increases in importance.) Speaking no Kazakh, he had to learn his lines phonetically. “That limited the room I had for improvisation,” Moriyama said, though he too praised Nurmukhambetov for his ability to switch story, and locations mid-shoot.
Takeba suggests that the boy losing his father is a parallel to Kazakhstan separating from the former Soviet Union. But such a read is not especially necessary.
The finished film, which Yeslyamova and Moriyama saw for the first time at a Busan press screening, is an accessible wide-screen epic, a tale of stunning landscapes, a boy’s shattered childhood, and woman’s unchanging place in hardscrabble, traditional society.