Japanese director Kei Ishikawa is at the 78th Cannes Film Festival with his new film “A pale view of hills“, screening in the Un certain Regard section.
The film is a big screen adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro novel of the same title. As it is Ishiguro’s 1982 debut novel, one of only two novels the author set in Japan, it remained un-adapted for the screen until today.
Ishiguro, who became a co-producer of the film, became also a mentor for Ishikawa, as he was “truly delighted” by the fact that his novel could be turned into a film by a Japanese director from the next generation.
“A pale view of hills“ tells the story of a young Japanese-British writer who plans to write a book based on her mother Etsuko’s post-war experiences in Nagasaki.
The film delves into the past of a nation and reflects on memories, on and on how the new generation is dealing with the past, 80 years after the war.
Plot
UK 1982. An young aspiring Japanese-British writer plans to write a book based on her mother Etsuko’s post-war experiences in Nagasaki. Haunted by the suicide of her older daughter, Etsuko begins to recount her memories from 1952 as a young mother-to-be. Her story begins with her encounter with Sachiko, a young woman full of hope about starting a new life abroad with her young daughter Mariko, who now and again mentions memories of an eerie woman. The writer finds troubling inconsistencies as she pieces together the mementoes of her mother’s Nagasaki years with the memories Etsuko shares.