THE STORY – 11-year-old Fuki navigates adolescence and family struggles in late-1980s Tokyo.
THE CAST – Yui Suzuki, Lily Franky, Hikari Ishida, Yuumi Kawai, Ayumu Nakajima, Ryota Bando & Hana Hope
THE TEAM – Chie Hayakawa (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 116 Minutes
When watching videos of dead relatives, what stands out the most is the grain in the image. A VHS tape, within moments, can send its spectator to the now dirtied landscapes that were brand new at the date of its taking. The static, un-synced sound is now their voice, and their faces are forever sculpted in 480p. These digital ghosts, personifications of grief in their own right, are in a constant state of evolution, moving further from the time it was taken, decaying with each second. It is this same wry, tactile melancholy that saturates and commences Chie Hayakwa’s follow-up to her acclaimed debut feature film “Plan 75,” “Renoir.“
Set amidst a sun-sodden 1987 suburban Tokyo, “Renoir“ sees Fuki (Yui Suzuki), an 11-year-old girl, navigating her Father’s (Lily Franky) terminal illness, her mother’s (Hikari Ishida) subsequent loneliness, and a freight train worth of coming-of-age cliches. With the tune of a whispery, lyrical, dreamlike aesthetic, Hayakawa’s direction and storytelling prose are sure to attract comparisons to Hirokazu Kore-eda, Tsai Ming Liang, and Hou Hsiao-Hsien. Nonetheless, at every opportunity, in mimicking the lyricality of her formers, she begins to construct a language of her own.
It is this language that sets the stage for Fuki, whose wide-eyed curiosity promises to investigate every forgotten corner of any room she enters. Newcomer Yui Suzuki’s sensitive dance between a grief-stricken daughter and a child refusing to grow up underscores every scene. In a climactic outing with Keiji, her Dad, upon noticing he’s being bullied by a group of paltry teens, proceeds to kick one from an elevated platform behind. Her entire body moves with the swing in a way only a child could, but it lands in a way that grief could motivate – two sides of the same coin Suzuki constantly appears to operate at.
Early into “Renoir,“ Fuki is captivated by an English-language magic show, saturated by the same seductive grain of a VHS tape. The magician’s primary instruction for those looking to access their psychic power is to ‘concentrate,‘ advice Fuki quickly takes to heart. Each fragmented strand of Hayakawa’s script is informed by this promise, wherein the connective tissues between vignettes manifest as rituals (cycling over a bridge, Fuki’s perpetual curiosity and animal sounds), and Fuki’s inability to concentrate on the reality of her surroundings. As a result, Renoir’s logic operates similarly to most coming-of-age stories. At one point, Fuki casts a “spell to end love“ on her Mum in retaliation to a new companion, a staple beat of the genre. Fuki’s Mum Utako’s (Hikari Ishida) loneliness is understood as a side effect, wherein any new connections must be dealt with. However, scenes removed from Fuki’s perspective demonstrate this is far from the case.
Every misguided choice Fuki makes is motivated by a careful blend of childlike naivete, curiosity, and, above all else, a hopeless misunderstanding of grief. It is this same grief, set to the sun-sodden rays of 1987 suburban Tokyo, that “Renoir“is constantly in reference to. Every inch of Hideho Urata’s warm cinematography and string of Rémi Boubal’s operatic score remind you of the very dissonance Hayakawa is trying to achieve in painting grief from this perspective, succumbing to the premise that maybe it’s something only magic can explain. Although not as strong as “Plan 75,” Hayakawa draws from her personal experiences to craft a deliberately paced, nostalgic story that warmly touches upon universal themes of grief, childhood imagination, and the bonds of family from this life and beyond.
