Cinema
Suzaku
萌の朱雀
Naomi Kawase · 1997
Synopsis
A forest village in the mountains of Nara is emptying under the effect of the crisis, according to the director's website, and a railway project is meant to open it up. Kōzō, the father, becomes passionate about the digging of the tunnel and takes the children there, his daughter Michiru and his nephew Eisuke. The work stops halfway. Fifteen years later, the family has grown poorer; Michiru, now an adolescent, has fallen in love with Eisuke, who has become a porter at an inn where he gets his aunt Yasuyo hired, and she does not leave him indifferent, according to the Underdox festival.
Context
The film was produced by a pay-television channel and by Bandai Visual, and distributed in Japan by Bitters End. It was shot on 35 mm at Nishiyoshino, a real village partly abandoned, which keeps an unfinished tunnel, and a renovated old farmhouse served as the main set, according to the notes of a German festival. Apart from the father, the roles were mostly given to local residents with no acting experience, according to the page devoted to it by its company. Shown at the Directors' Fortnight, it was released in Japan on 1 November 1997.
Who it is for
Ninety-five minutes amid cedar forests, played in large part by its inhabitants.
Prizes and reception
Caméra d'or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997, it made its director the youngest winner of that prize.
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