Naomi Kawase, a Cannes Film Festival darling, won the Camera d’Or in 1997 with her debut feature Moe no suzaku and has since been a regular presence in Official Competition, winning the Grand Prix in 2007 for Mogari no Mori. With that in mind, you would presume there’s strong hope for her latest entry, Hanezu (Hanezu no tsuki). But despite her best intentions, Kawase’s latest falls short of creating a believably heightened world to frame her strikingly shot yet insubstantial Japanese love story.

Takumi (Toto Komizu) and Kayoko (Hako Oshima) live in the Asaka region, original birthplace of Japan, where the stories of the mountains still hold enormous relevance to each generation. It’s immediately stressed that waiting is something this place prides itself on, but Kayoko is sick of it. The married woman falls in love with Takumi and their relationship rides the all-too-familiar rollercoaster; she’s tired of her uncertainty, then annoyed with Takumi’s vague ideas of what he expects of their future. What is unique, however, is the striking aesthetic influenced by 8th-century poems and the deep-seated connection the people of the Asaka region have with the land.  Indeed, Kawase spoke the post-screening conference about her large awareness of nature and turning that into the main focus of Hanezu.  But while undoubtedly that’s her strong point, you don’t watch a film just because it’s pretty.

By using stories from Asaka as the basis of the film, Kawase agrees with the belief that technology has made us more impatient. While many agree with the saying that patience is a virtue, the same doesn’t necessarily apply to cinema. Hanezu is not an easy watch; the core relationship develops at a painfully slow rate, leaving the first hour of the film to be tediously uneventful. It is, quite frankly, boring. Caring for these characters quickly becomes a chore, and by the time something significant actually does happen,  it’s too little too late to reengage.

Verdict:

Kawase’s Hanezu is a visually stunning but ponderous look at the romance of nature.

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For more of Katina’s coverage of the 2011 Cannes film festival, click here.

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