HANEZU by Naomi Kawase

Hanezu is a mysterious, slow-paced cinematic elegy of the Japanese director Naomi Kawase that brings together many of her favorite topics such as the relation between the past and the present, especially associated to the spirit of a place; human connection with nature; love and intimacy bonded with suffering and loss.

Poetic voiceovers by a man and woman begin the film by recounting the ancient myth of two mountains competing for one another's love. The old tale is transformed by the director into the present, in a human form of the young couple, lives together in Nara, the charming Asuka region in Japan, also known as the nation’s birthplace.

Pregnant Kayoko (Hako Oshima) dyes scarves red using safflower, while her partner, Tetsuya (Tetsuya Akikawa), tinkers in the garden when not working as a book editor or daydreaming about opening a cafe. Eventually, Tetsuya leaves on a business trip, while Kayoko is using the time by having an affair with Takumi (Tohta Komizu), a wood carver. He opens him the secret of being pregnant and together they are visiting their respective parents. After returning, Kayo breaks different news to her two lovers, provoking almost equally devastating reactions.

It is a beautifully made quietist work, which has a passionate reverence for nature, combined with a romantic and slightly erotic love story. However, the narrative story emerges only gradually, as Kawase spends the first half an hour focusing her attention on picturing the nature: on insects, mountains, the sun reflection on water. Like all of director’s fictions, this one prostrates itself respectfully before the majesty of Nature, emphasizing how humans are inseparable from their habitat. The early voiceovers of human repeated an hour in, with the love-struck mountains being likened to men and women who are driven to engage in toweringly confused interaction. When Kawase tries to elevate the threesome’s tragedy into something primeval and archetypal, she punctuates their goings-on with incantations of ancient verses and fabulous images of Nature accompanied by narrators intoning myths of mountains. The abrupt outcome at the end is part of a red color scheme betokening the vibrancy and fragility of life, encapsulated by the Japanese title, which means «moon in red». At the end of the film, the director surprisingly places a title card as a reference to the tsunami that recently devastated northern Japan.

Since 1997, when Naomi Kawase won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes film festival with her debut feature Moe No Suzaku she has been a festival darling and a regular presence in the official competition.  Ten years later, when she was awarded again with the Grand Prix for Mogari No Mori, her pedigree background as a well-known director was confirmed. However, commercially her work will not attract mess audience and will not persuade many new converts to join the European shaped art house group of supporters. 

 The Bund, Nr. 451, pp. 44-45