Shooting a film in Kobe was the starting point of this project. It was Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s birth place. Considering the abstraction of locality and nativeness is a prerequisite of his film making, it is doubtful if he holds nostalgic empathy to “the hometown”....
“Yes, I am originally from Kobe, but so what? Well, I have never tried to put a certain reflection of my birthplace in my works. But locals often told me that my heartless attitude shows where I am from and that is that of typical Kobe (laugh). As we have already lost many of the landscapes those days in Kobe, so the shooting locations took place in the suburbs of Tokyo... However as I know what Kobe is, so those landscapes were hardly seen as those in Kobe. So I suffered the unusual conflict over the reality represented by these locations. And also the language mattered a lot. On the contrary to above mentioned, hearing fake Kobe intonations spontaneously made me to correct them very strictly (laugh). Accordingly, we changed the birthplace of two leading characters to Yokohama, and then made the standard Japanese intonations OK. But still that left some difficulties with the roll of a maid served for the couple, performed by Tsunematsu (Yuri). She had never had any chances to speak in Kansai intonation. But I know she had tried so hard. You know, if the acting is good enough, the correctness in the vernacular does not matter any.”
PROFILE: Kiyoshi Kurosawa (黒沢清)
Born in Kobe on July 19, 1955, Kiyoshi Kurosawa began making 8mm films in college. Sweet Home (1988) marks his commertial debut. 1997’s Cure has received international acclaim. Then he directed well-received films, License to Live (1998) and Charisma (1999). Pulse (2000) gets the International Film Critics Awards (the FIPRESCI Prize) at the 54th Cannes Film Festival. In 2016, he derect the first international film Daguerrotype. With Wife of a Spy, He won the Silver Lion for Best Direction at the 77th Venice International Film Festival. Kurosawa’s directiion and his works are highly appreciated domestically and internationally.
FILM INFORMATION
Wife of a Spy
Directer: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Writers: Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Tadashi Nohara, Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Music: Ryosuke Nagaoka
Casts: Yu Aoi, Issey Takahashi, Ryota Bando, Yuri Tsunematsu, Minosuke, Hyunri, Masahiro Higashide, Takashi Sasano
Distribution: Bitters End
(2020, Japan, 115 minutes)
Released in Japan on 16 October, 2020 at Shinjuku Piccadilly and other theaters.
https://wos.bitters.co.jp/
