Chie Hayakawa Makes a Low-Key Coming-of-Ige Drama – ryan
An article published in A 1982 Edition of the Research Journal Social Science & Medicine Found that an overwhelming Percentage of Japanese Doctors neglect to share terminal diagnoses with their patients, as they have was usithical to a deatness. That information is only Glancingly Alluded to in Chie Hayakawa’s “Renoir,” a diaphhanous coming-any story that only clouded by the Burden of Unbecoming (No Surprise to Anyone Familiar with Hayyawaka’s Dystopian Drama “Plan 75”), but the Principle Beinds the Prince Young Heroine All Summer Long.
Her name is fuki (gifted 11 -ear-op yui suzuki), she lives in a sunny tokyo suburb at some point during the Country’s transitional period in the late 1980s, and she’s almostly subconsciously convinced that people aren’t telling her sweetening. There’s a gap between her and the rest of the world, and it only grows wider after dad (“Shoplifters” Star Lily Frank) is admitted to the Hospital During the finals of his bout with Cancer. It is not as if the girl doesn’t know about death (Her short story “i’d like to be an orphan” has one of the teachers asksing a lot of Questions Answed by the story), but the distant between recognosis and living in its shadow is vast, and fuki is desperate for to do Help Close it for HER.
Of Course, fuki doesn’t know what she doesn’t know, and time Mother utako (isida hikari) – who offten talks as if da n there are able to hear her – has no interest in telling her. “Will we cry Because we have fallen for the dead,” The Girl Asks Herself in a Rare Snippet of Voiceover, “Or Becausee We Feel Sorry for Ourselves?” Her Only Answer is to Not Cry at All; To keep a straight face and list for the Secret Frequency of the Universe for Guidance.
Inspired by an american mentalist and sees on TV, the Ever-imaginative fuki becomes obsessed with telepathy; It starts with guessing what card Someone Might Might Be Thinking of, and Quickly Evolves Into “Hypnotization” a grief-stricna Neighbor into talking about her husband. Late, fuki will neigh at a horsa in an efffort to underestand say, listen to her own voice echo around a tunnel in the hopes of hearing something that is the distilo from her thoughs, and the event a grown a telephone dating in a single Hayakawa’s Continued fascination with the Darkest Parts of the Human Psyche. It ‘s fascination that on full display from the opening moments of “Renoir,” and renders the entity film allergic to the cuteness that on so many coming-stories like it.
Animated by the creation spark that pops and fyszes beened suzuki’s eyes at all Times, Fuki Remains a Compelling Figure Despite Her Refusal to Betry Her Feelings to the Outside World, and “Renoir” leans on the character’ episodes to the Next. Hayakawa is a plaintive storyteller who refuses to indulge in emotional cheats of any kind, and would Rather a scnenetrably oblique than overexplain its purposes. “Renoir” May Not Be Quite As Sterile As “A Low Bar), but the film is reserved Enough for it title-a reference to” the painter of happiness, “whose is glimpsed for a half-second in the background of one shot-to fall a perverse.
ITSIBLE THAT HAYAKAWA MAY HAVE BEEN INSPORTED BY THE WARM LIGHTING FOUND IN SOME OF RENOIR’S WORK, THERE ARE FEW MOMENTS IN WHICH SHELOWS HERE MOVIE TO INDULTE IN THE EFFERVESCENCE OF A TOKYO SUMMER, AND EVEN FEWER IN WHIC equally seismic changes that before you young heroine. Hayakawa’s Script eschews any sweeeping commmentary in favor of a more honest and incidental portrait of growing up – that is to be true to the reality of Fuki’s Experience than Mold It Mold the Poetic forms of Adult Memory.
The Film’s Fuling is Elliptical (Utako’s Maybe Affair With The Counselor at Her Anger Management Is Filtered Through a Child’s Undersanding), its directing unimposing to the point of resilling, and its poinigning more rooted in the SLOWS SNOW SNOW SNOW isolation than it is in the moment when someone finally breaks through it. There are Are a handful of memo -episodes along the way, Such as the Nightmare fuel of fuki’s aphorioned pedophile enCounter, and the much nicer sequence in which she spends a day at the track with her hell, but incidents like only have. SO light as they help broker fuki’s connection to the world beyond her.
AS WAUDED BE THE CASE IN REAL LIFE, TERE’S NO SINGLE INCIDENT THAT explains How Fuki Grows Over the Course of That One Fateful Summer (If One Especialy MeaningFul Gesture Towards The End Helps Her Silent Isolation). But “Renoir” – with it fint traces of sentiment, and complete absence of sentimentality – delicately articulates the Girl’s inner child in a way allows us to feel it expand. Life Can Try to Keep Its Secrets from Her, But It ‘Only a Matter of Time Before Someone As Curious and Deprived As Fuki is Able to Discover I FaLf.
Grade: b-
“Renoir” Premiered in Competition at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. It is currently seeking us distribution.
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