Cannes 2012 Like Someone in Love Reviews and Press Conference

The 65^th Cannes Film Festival is in full swing and reviews and news are coming out fast (check Bonjour Tristesse for more coverage  – I’m going to copy his way of setting out the information here). We are midway through the festival and Japanese films get their premieres today with Like Someone in Love screening early in the day in competition and Ai to Makoto being screened later at midnight as part of the Midnight Screenings. First up is Like Somone in Love.

 

Day 6 – Like Someone in Love (In Competition)

 

Director: Abbas Kiarostami, Writer: Abbas Kiarostami, Starring: Rin Takanashi, Tadashi Okuno, Denden, Ryo Kase

Like Someone in Love is Abbas Kiarostami’s follow-up to Certified Copy. It is a French/Japanese co-production and it is the only Japanese language film In Competition at Cannes. It stars Rin Takanashi (Goth – Love of Death), television and theatre actor Tadashi Okuno, Denden (Cold Fish, Himizu) and Ryo Kase (SPEC: The Movie).

In Cannes were a radiant looking Rin Takanashi, Okuno, Kase and Kiarostami and although the press conference got off to a bumpy start it was rather interesting (although not as interesting as an earlier interview, some answers from which I have included). As expected the majority of questions were directed at Kiarostami until a plucky Japanese journalist appeared at the end and asked Okuno what it was like working with Kiarostami. Amusingly it was revealed that that Okuno doesn’t have a driving licence and yet he had to perform driving scenes. Anyway, quotes here:

Kiarostami’s relation to Japanese cinema: Kiarostami: “… When I started getting interested in films I used to go to the film library in Tehran and I used to watch a lot of Ozu’s films… Once I had become a director I realised I had been heavily influenced by Japanese films…”

On watching recent Japanese films: Kiarostami: “I couldn’t perceive Japanese soul and emotion. I perceived a tremendous influence of Hollywood film and these films were a poor copy. In terms of being impacted by contemporary Japanese films, no I wasn’t influenced… Maybe I didn’t watch the right contemporary Japanese films.”

On Ella Fitzgerald’s song and how much of an influence is Jazz: Kiarostami: “I don’t think that the importance of the music is paramount in the film… Music doesn’t play that major part. We are a generation that was marked by Jazz. The actors and producers were all familiar with Like Someone in Love.”

Kariostami on the ending: I felt that this can’t be the end of the film, there’s something unfinisned about it but we’ll see about it later. Time went by, more than six months elapsed but I didn’t find the end. When I sent this in for translation and I sent it to the producers I expected the producers to say your film doesn’t have an ending but then I realised that my film doesn’t have a beginning… and I realised that’s what happens in real life. No tale has a real beginning or ending.