I am Kawase, hear me roar
Posted on Friday, 8 June 2007 at 1:40 pm
Let’s say you’re a critically successful but until now little-known indie filmmaker, and you’re fresh off a big win at a prestigious foreign film festival. You’ve already got your next film in the works, your first-ever foreign location shoot, and have cast a famous model with a few TV and movie roles under her belt in the lead role. So, naturally the next logical step is to… belittle your star’s acting ability in front of the tabloid media? Way to go, Kawase Naomi.
As Tokyograph and Variety Asia have reported already, Kawase’s next film will be a love comedy shot entirely on location in Thailand tentatively titled “Sekaijuu ga Watashi o Suki dattara ii no ni” (something like “If Only the Whole World Loved Me”), and has uncharacteristically cast a heavily exposed lead actress in the form of ‘Hasekyo’, former MMA reporter and current Canon spokesmodel Hasegawa Kyoko. Kawase had this to say about her yesterday at a Tokyo press conference promoting the June 23rd release of her Cannes Grand Prix winner “The Mourning Forest” (Mogari no Mori):
“I watched a TV series [Hasegawa appeared in], but I can’t say much about her acting yet. I didn’t think she was really putting her heart into it. Right now, I’m looking for people who can help her work on that. I depict human beings, so I want to cut right to the heart of [her] humanity.”
That’s the kind of comment you might expect to hear from a cantankerous disciplinarian like “Pacchigi!” director Izutsu Kazuyuki, but it probably comes from Kawase’s customary preference for using non-actors and whipping them in to shape through an intensive workshopping process. It’ll be interesting to see whether she succeeds in beating the bad acting habits out of her headliner. Nevertheless, it’s indicative of her growing confidence and ambition to insert herself into the pantheon of legendary Japanese filmmakers. Apart from the Hasegawa slam, she also admitted her Cannes success “wasn’t a great surprise”, thinks her next film has a great chance of picking up the Palme d’Or next year, and wants to be mentioned in the same breath as Kurosawa Akira and Oshima Nagisa by future generations. To come anywhere near achieving that, she’ll have to make a film that plays in more than 28 cinemas nationwide - the current paltry count for “The Mourning Forest”. (sources: Sponichi, Sanspo, Sports Hochi)