Director: Kei Ishikawa

Stars: Suzu Hirose, Fumi Nikaido, Yo Yoshida, Camilla Aiko

Remembrance and identity are explored in this disappointing adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 1982 book, co-scripted by the author. The story begins in 1980s England where young English aspiring writer Niki (Aiko) questions her Japanese mother Etsuko (Yoh Yoshida) about the family history for an article. The story winds back to 1952 Japan where Etsuko (Suzu Hirose) is a conventional but unsatisfied housewife married to a constantly busy husband and expecting her first child. Her disillusionment with her mapped-out future is indicated, possibly even personified, via her friendship with the glamourous and defiant Sachiko (Fumi Nikaido), a single mother with a sullen teen daughter, Mariko. Mother and daughter both have scars from the radiation from 1945 Nagasaki bombings. Despite her reputation in town, Sachiko has secured a way out of Japan via a marriage to an American soldier. The rich ambiguity of the novel is lost in translation with Ishiguro’s elegant plotting and prose sounding mannered, and the script takes some unusual narrative choices. Cinematographer Piotr Niemyjski invests the Nagasaki scenes with a colourful dreamlike postcard quality, and the relationship between Etsuko and Sachiko is very-well played by Hirose and Nikaido, leaving the 1980s sequences feeling drab and inert in comparison.

David Willoughby

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