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французский

Cannes 2017: Josh Hartnett nelle prime immagini di 'Oh Lucy!'

Il suo cortometraggio dal titolo omonimo ha conquistato nel 2014 il Festival di Cannes, dove ha vinto il secondo posto del Cinefondation Award, e il Sundance Film Festival dove ha conquistato il premio della giuria; adesso la regista Atsuko Hirayanagi è pronta a esordire con il suo primo lungometraggio adattamento del suo stesso corto di successo. Oh Lucy! è un comedy drama ambientato per le strade di Tokyo, e ha come protagonista un'imprevedibile personaggio.

Setsuko ha superato gli "anta" ma le particolari lezioni di inglese che prende e una parrucca bionda la rigenerano trasformandola in Lucy. Ben presto, Setsuko si innamora dell'insegnante John e, quando egli scompare misteriosamente, decide di imbarcarsi con la sorella in una missione di ricerca che da Tokyo la porterà nel sud della California.

Il film vede come protagonista Shinobu Terajima, attrice celebre per i ruoli in Mille miglia lontano (2005) e Caterpillar (2010), vede nel cast anche l'attore americano Josh Hartnett. Questo mese Oh Lucy! verrà presentato durante la Settimana della critica del Festival di Cannes 2017, dove concorre per la vittoria della Caméra d'or.

Nicolas Lemerle анализирует японский фильм "О, Люси!" на неделе критики в Каннах.

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Cannes 2017 – Jour 2 : Seconde vie (Oh Lucy! de Atsuko Hirayanagi)
Posté le 18 mai 2017 par Nicolas Lemerle (East Asia)

La Semaine de la Critique, cette année, n’a malheureusement pas beaucoup de cinéma asiatique à nous présenter. Le seul film de la sélection, Oh Lucy! de la jeune réalisatrice japonaise Atsuko Hirayanagi, est, de plus, co-produit avec les Etats-Unis. Rien de plus normal puisque le film a été tourné entre Tokyo et Los Angeles. Adaptant son propre court-métrage éponyme, Atsuko Hirayanagi signe ici son premier long-métrage, avec une refonte totale du casting, beaucoup plus prestigieux, et une ambition revue à la hausse.

L’introduction du film plante frontalement le décor : un groupe de Tokyoïtes parés de masques chirurgicaux s’agglutine sur un quai. Un homme s’avance et chuchote quelques mots inaudibles à l’oreille de la femme devant lui, avant de se jeter sous le métro. Cette scène paraît surréaliste, et pourtant, à travers elle, on est d’emblée aspiré dans l’univers oppressant de Setsuko (Shinobu Terajima), cette femme proche de la soixantaine qui a reçu les derniers mots du jeune homme avant son suicide. Passé le choc, elle continue sa route, arrive à son travail, nettoie le sang sur ses vêtements comme si de rien n’était. Comme si tout cela était normal. Setsuko ne vit plus. Elle survit, sans avenir, sans lendemain, seule, coincée entre les bureaux froids de l’open space où elle travaille, et le capharnaüm qui lui sert d’appartement. Confrontée aux différentes formes d’hypocrisie qui gangrènent le milieu social dans lequel elle évolue quotidiennement, elle fait partie intégrante de ce système où l’être humain est ramené plus bas que terre.
Setsuko va en plus être trahie par sa propre nièce Mika (Shiori Kutsuna), qui l’embarque dans des cours d’anglais dispensés par John, son copain américain (Josh Hartnett), histoire de récolter l’argent qui permettra aux deux tourtereaux de s’envoler vers les Etats-Unis. Mais ces cours un peu spéciaux agissent comme un électrochoc sur Setsuko. Elle s’y crée une nouvelle identité, Lucy, se rapproche de John, et fait la rencontre de Komori (Kôji Yakusho), un veuf venu lui aussi se créer une double identité américaine. Alors, quand Mika et John disparaissent ensemble, Setsuko tente de convaincre sa sœur Ayako, la mère de Mika (Kaho Minami), de partir à leur recherche dans le sud californien.

Ce voyage salvateur offre une véritable échappatoire au quotidien morose de Setsuko. Un second souffle qui extirpe Oh Lucy! du chemin lourd et étouffant trop souvent emprunté par le cinéma d’auteur japonais. Le film prend alors des allures de road movie mélancolique, et la réalisatrice parvient à varier les tons avec brio, osant même quelques francs moments de comédie quand il s’agit de dépeindre la relation conflictuelle entre les deux sœurs. Malgré tout, la gravité qui parcourt le film n’est jamais loin. La question du suicide, par exemple, reste prégnante à chaque instant, sous différentes formes, telle la conséquence de cette société malade qui rêve d’Occident comme moyen d’épanouissement souvent illusoire.
Pour autant, même si la mort n’est jamais très loin, Oh Lucy! célèbre la vie avant tout. A force de manipulations, de mensonges, de secrets, de non-dits, les liens entre les personnages sont mis à rudes épreuves, mais un simple geste de tendresse, franc et sincère, peut empêcher l’irréparable. Derrière le tableau sombre, le message d’Atsuko Hirayanagi est porteur d’espoir. Son film confirme en tout cas la naissance d’un talent prometteur dans le milieu du cinéma d’auteur japonais.

Nicolas Lemerle

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variety.com

Cannes Film Review: ‘Oh Lucy!’

Andrew Barker
Senior Features Writer @barkerrant

Atsuko Hirayanagi's culture-clash comedy is a chocolate trifle with an arsenic core.

Try to picture a Japanese remake of “Hello, My Name Is Doris,” shot through with an undertow of quiet desperation that wouldn’t be out of place in a Cristian Mungiu film, and you’re halfway toward grasping the strange appeal of director Atsuko Hirayanagi’s feature debut, “Oh Lucy!” Like a chocolate trifle with an arsenic core, this quirky portrait of a lonely Tokyo woman who follows her English teacher to California offers a skewed take on American indie tropes, effectively gesturing toward broad comic appeal while offering peeks at a profound darkness just beneath. Expanded from her award-winning short of the same title, “Oh Lucy!” betrays some rough edges in the transition, but Hirayanagi’s idiosyncratic touch marks her as a talent worth tracking.

Set in some of the least picturesque corners of Tokyo, “Oh Lucy!” is a character study about a character rarely seen on film: a quietly miserable, single, middle-aged Japanese wage-slave. Setsuko (Shinobu Terajima) is a woman with few obvious qualities, and even fewer opportunities, friends, lovers, or interests. A withdrawn, chain-smoking loner in an office culture built on forced displays of camaraderie, her workday begins when she witnesses a suicide on the subway, and continues as she watches an aging employee on the verge of retirement soak up the condescending affection of her coworkers, all of whom are quick to make fun of her once she leaves the room. The subway jumper, the lonely old pensioner – it’s clear that Setsuko sees these as her two most likely options.

Her life gets an unexpected jolt after a visit from her fun-loving twentysomething niece, Mika (Shioli Kutsuna) who badgers her into signing up for English lessons with an unconventional tutor. Working out of a seedy love hotel, John (Josh Hartnett) teaches English through a strange sort of cultural immersion. Hoping to shake his students out of their careful formality with some role-playing, he gives them each American names and outlandish wigs to wear – Setsuko is renamed Lucy and given a set of shaggy blonde curls – all the while trampling over every line of cultural propriety. “I’m a hugger,” he purrs as he goes in for a big embrace at their first lesson. At first Setsuko shrinks away in horror; later she returns the hug with somewhat alarming vigor.

Much to her surprise, Setsuko takes to the new identity with zest, feeling empowered to say and do all the things as Lucy that she’d never considered in her old, buttoned-down daily slog, and taking a liking to a widowed fellow student (Koji Yakusho). At this point, “Oh Lucy!” seems poised to develop into a typical saga of midlife liberation, but Hirayanagi gives it one important wrinkle: Setsuko’s reawakened inner teenager makes some truly poor decisions. When she finally gets the courage to speak her mind to her coworkers, for example, her barbs are tinged with such cruelty that she immediately regrets it. And when she shows up for her second English lesson only to find that secret lovers Tom and Mika have run off to America, she follows him to L.A. for a visit, taking Ayako (Kaho Minami), her Lucille Bluth-esque sister – and Mika’s disapproving mother – along.

Most of the film’s first third is taken from Hirayanagi’s 2014 short, and when Setsuko and Ayako head to California in the second, it loses its clockwork comic precision. But the shaggier back half also begins to open up in some unexpected ways. When the two sisters find John, he’s lost whatever suave magic he managed to project as a smooth-talking expat in Asia – in America, he’s just another deadbeat surfer dude, two months late on his rent in a run-down apartment complex. Mika has left him, with a motel postcard from San Diego the only clue to her whereabouts, so the unlikely threesome set off on a road trip to try to find her, with Setsuko clearly weighing a whole host of further bad decisions.

Terajima is irresistible in the lead role, shifting from painfully childlike vulnerability to rapier nastiness on a dime; in one late scene with Hartnett, she appears to age fifteen years in a matter of seconds. It helps that Hirayanagi’s loose filmmaking style gives her plenty of room to flesh out the character, sometimes lingering on the aftermath of a punchline for a few seconds too many, allowing the laughter to start to curdle into discomfort, rather than simply cutting away.

Perhaps most importantly, Hirayanagi clearly has deep affection for this character, and keeps the full bleakness of her life tucked carefully away until she’s ready to use it. When she shoots Setsuko’s tiny studio apartment, for example, she keeps the camera tightly focused on the actress, such that the weeks’ worth of piled up mail, overflowing ashtrays and unfolded clothes strewn carelessly around only vaguely register in the blurry foregrounds. Most of “Oh Lucy!” passes by breezily, and in different hands this could easily be a crowdpleasing comedy – Minami is hilarious throughout, and the film contains the strangest use of Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles” since “White Chicks” – but when Hirayanagi opts to plunge deeper, you realize the darkness has been there waiting all along.

Cannes Film Review: 'Oh Lucy!'
Reviewed at UTA screening room, Beverly Hills, May 10, 2017. (In Cannes Film Festival – Critics’ Week.) Running time: 95 MIN.
Production
A Matchgirl Pictures, Gloria Sanchez, Meridian Content production. Produced by Han West, Yukie Kito, Jessica Elbaum, Atsuko Hirayanagi. Executive producers, Ramzig Hovaghimian, Meileen Choo, Will Ferrell, Adam McKay.
Crew
Directed by Atsuko Hirayanagi. Screenplay, Hirayanagi, Boris Frumin. Camera (color): Paula Huidobro. Editor: Kate Hickey. Music: Erik Friedlander. Production designers: Norifumi Ataka, Jason Hougaard.
With
Shinobu Terajima, Kaho Minami, Josh Hartnett, Shioli Kutsuna, Koji Yakusho.

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Interview with Atsuko Hirayanagi, director of Oh Lucy!

Ahead of the UK premiere of Oh Lucy! at the Raindance Film Festival 2017 Opening Night Gala, we sat down with director Atsuko Hirayanagi to talk about the film.

Raindance: Why did you decide to adapt Oh Lucy! from a short film to feature, and what were the greatest challenges in doing so?

Atsuko Hirayanagi: I actually had the idea for the feature before thinking of the short. My then grad school professor told me… ‘no, that’s not a feature, it’s a short!’. I guess it was too ‘thin’ to be a feature. So, I wrote it as a short and shot it as my thesis film, in the back of my mind viewing it as the first twenty minutes of the feature. The greatest challenge of going from the short to the feature was not diluting the core story of Setsuko/Lucy.

I first compressed the idea into the short, and then expanded it to show what happens next. One inspiration for ‘what happens next’ came from a true story of a Japanese woman travelling alone to the Grand Canyon to celebrate her birthday. She was later found dead at the bottom of a small fall in the canyon. That woman’s trip to the US and the tragic component of that story resonates through multiple characters in the feature.

Setsuko is an unlikely protagonist – unstable, unfulfilled and a touch delusional. Was it important for you to portray such an unconventional female character?

As a storyteller, it is important for me to find and portray a character that I haven’t seen before on screen. Everyone has a story to tell and things to say, and I feel this is especially true of the quiet ones. I remember being asked during the admissions interview for film school, “describe a person in your life you don’t like”, and then the interviewer goes, “now make that person the protagonist in a movie, and tell me that story…” This question somehow stuck with me, so I often find myself looking for the unlikely protagonists.

Despite her character flaws, it’s impossible not to be endeared to Setsuko. What is it about her character that gets audiences to connect with her?

I believe that in the centre of things, at the very core, we are all the same. So if we dig into that core, I believe our fears are buried in there. If we’re open to showing these fears, being honest, we may be able to understand each other better — and just connect. We, humans, are often so weak; some of us are more disciplined and know how to hide our fears better than others. Some have better and thicker masks than others. But deep inside, we’re scared little chickens. Perhaps audiences connect with Setsuko because they see some of those raw and unmasked moments, and can relate to her fears.

Setsuko tries to conform to an “American way” of living, which eventually leads to her downfall. Is the film acting as a cautionary tale of the possible repercussions of living in an increasingly globalised world?

Wow, such an intimidating question! I feel like a PhD thesis student right now! I simply used ‘America’ as a device to stretch Setsuko as far away and opposite direction as possible from her Japanese self. ‘Freedom’ is the word associated with America for me, ever since I remember it as a kid. It’s okay to laugh loudly, and it’s okay to put your feet on your desk (right or wrong!). That’s America, which is completely the opposite of Japan. I wanted to unleash Setsuko by giving her that freedom and see how far she would go. I personally don’t see this process as her downfall, as long as she can find her center, which is neither Lucy, nor the quiet office lady, Setsuko.

After a period of intense suffering for Setsuko, the film ends with a train approaching the platform she’s standing on. Does this ending signify a new beginning for her?

Spoiler alert? Yes, this is the first time in her life she’s confused and being honest. She’s facing her fears, asking the question …who am I? Sometimes if we don’t destroy something, nothing new will be born.

How did Megan Mullally’s cameo come about?

It was luck! She’s with the same agency as mine and one of our producers just finished a film with her, so we sent her the script. She read it and said yes! We couldn’t believe it. She’s super cool, down to earth, and obviously an extremely talented artist. She makes acting look so easy. I wish we could have all her scenes. She is hilarious. We should put them in the DVD.

Given the film is about a clashing of cultures, have you noticed audiences reacting differently to it around the world?

I feel like I haven’t seen enough reaction from audiences to answer this question yet. For the short film however, the reactions were definitely very different in different countries. People would laugh at different parts of the short, even when there was no specific comedic intent for it. The universal question that came out was what would Setsuko do next.

What projects are you working on next?

I’m working on a couple of originals that I am not ready to discuss, but it feels so good to be writing again. I’m also considering projects that are not mine, but have similar DNA, kind of tragic and funny at the same.

Book your ticket for the premiere of Oh Lucy! at the Opening Night Gala of Raindance Film Festival 2017, followed by a Q&A with Atsuko Hirayanag and star Josh Hartnett and an after party.

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Oh Lucy! review

Caroline Preece Oct 18, 2017

Oh Lucy, starring Josh Hartnett, was a highlight of the Raindance Film Festival. Here's our review...

The stifling loneliness of city life is not an unexplored topic. A largely modern problem for the developed world we’re only really able to get to grips with through art and film and music, the isolated feeling of being alone in a crowd is a good narrative jumping off point precisely because everyone in the audience has likely experienced it at one point or another.

But Oh Lucy!, an independent Japanese production from debut feature writer and director Atsuko Hirayanagi, tackles the familiar subject matter better than most, combining pathos, comedy and a bunch of great performances to create something truly special and ultimately moving.

Setsuko (Shinobu Terajima) is a middle-aged office worker living a lonely life in Tokyo. When her niece Mika (Shioli Katsuna) asks her aunt to take over English classes she’s paid for, Setsuko is opened up to a whole other world. John (Josh Hartnett), her teacher, gives her the new and exciting identity of Lucy, complete with blonde wig and lazy American pronunciation, and she’s hooked. When John and Mika use the money to move to Los Angeles, feeling lost, she follows them.

Through its lead character, the film taps into a universal desire to escape from our lives when we realise we’re not what we dreamed we’d be. The film starts with a random suicide at the train platform, and we quickly realise that such incidents are so frequent that a co-worker thinks nothing of telling Setsuko “I haven’t witnessed one yet’.

Setsuko’s daily life consists of waking up alone in her tiny, cluttered apartment and going to work at an office so generic that it’s been deliberately given a more muted, grey colour palette than the rest of the film. She doesn’t speak with her uptight sister, and she doesn’t appear to have any friends. When John shows her kindness before taking it away, she understandably pursues the only thing that’s made her feel alive.

But this isn’t a love story, or if it is it’s between Setsuko and Lucy. She herself mistakes her desire to be someone else with a desire for someone she barely knows, and this disconnect manifests itself earlier in the film with a tirade of insults aimed at a co-worker that could just as well have been directed at her. Setsuko isn’t necessarily a protagonist we want to root for, but she’s always fascinating to watch.

Beginning life as a short film, Oh Lucy! comes into its own when it extends beyond that initial premise and takes us to the underwhelming sunshine of Los Angeles. While under the fluorescents of what we can only assume is a converted brothel, John was a kind and exotic gatekeeper to a more enticing world, but in his natural habitat he quickly becomes his real self - an opportunistic loser.

It’s here you realise what a genius bit of casting Hartnett is, lending his easy charm and familiarity to a global audience to a role that could have been pretty hateful in another’s hands. His motivations are left vague, but various hints at his backstory paint an unflattering picture.

Despite the somewhat heavy subject matter, the film is still a comedy at its heart. It takes a deft hand to combine the two, and Hirayanagi is helped along with an incredibly strong turn from Terajima.

Oh Lucy! isn’t a perfect film, losing its way in the third act before signing off with a simple and effective final shot, but as a character study of a deeply flawed woman, it’s almost unique. We simply don’t see these stories of older women told in Hollywood, and maybe it takes an outside voice to break through that barrier and bring us a story as absorbing and surprising as Setsuko’s.

Oh Lucy played at the Raindance Film Festival. When we have a UK release date, we'll pass it on.
4/5

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Премьера фильма О, Люси! / Oh Lucy! во Франции состоится 30 января 2018г.

https://twitter.com/SabaMelodie

Когда, ну когда же, и мы сможем посмотреть фильм " О, Люси!"!!!???  Кажется, я, после @Penny Dreadful@, ни одного фильма не ждала с таким нетерпением!

Игорь1988
Страшные сказки пересмотреть- хочу-хочу! Ну почему каникулы празднично-новогодние так быстро кончились! Начну смотреть, затянет, все заброшу, окружающие пострадают))) Может, в предстоящий старый новый год?

Мировая премьера фильма "О, Люси!" состоится 22 мая 2018г., может и у нас в прокате появится?

Новости!
Сегодня в Париже состоится предварительный показ фильма "О, Люси!", в присутствии Джоша Хартнетта!!!

Ce soir à l'@UGCcinemas Les Halles et demain à celui de Bercy, avant-première de #OhLucy! en présence de Josh Hartnett 😀

https://twitter.com/Anthony_Bateman

Film Review: Oh Lucy!

By Brigette Ginter
Directed by Atsuko Hirayanagi
Written by Atsuko Hirayanagi, Boris Frumin
Starring Shinobu Terajima, Josh Hartnett, Kôji Yakusho, Kaho Minami, Shioli Kutsuna
Country: USA, Japan
Rating: 3.5 / 5

Oh Lucy! tells the story of Setsuko (Shinobu Terajima), a middle-aged Japanese admin worker stuck in the daily grind of Tokyo life.  All the predictability of her life changes when she begins to take English classes, coerced into it by her niece, Mika.  Under the tutelage of John (Josh Hartnett), an unconventional teacher of ESL with questionable methods, Setsuko begins her “studies.”

In her first class, John encourages Setsuko to take on the personality of Lucy, complete with a blonde curly wig.  According to John, “when you are in class, you are Lucy, not Setsuko.”  Unlike the reserved Setsuko, Lucy is a “fun girl that likes to have a good time.”  John’s methods include prolonged hugs and teaching his students to speak “lazy” American English.

As we might guess, Setsuko develops a crush on John.  When John suddenly disappears, Setsuko sets out to find him, leading her on a journey to a variety of unglamorous locations throughout Southern California.  During the film, Setsuko seems to be progressively unraveling, emotionally and mentally.

Shinobu Terajima does a wonderful job demonstrating the isolation and midlife crisis that her character is experiencing.  Josh Hartnett does a strong job playing an initial nice guy that has deadbeat undertones.

The film has a handful of extremely uncomfortable moments and seems to balance humorous episodes with moments of tragedy.  For not a very long film, (1hr 35min), the film certainly does cram in a lot of events.

Although enjoyable, I did wish the film had a bit more substance.  It seemed to have the potential but fell a little flat.

Oh Lucy! is playing at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival on Sunday (Feb 4) at Metro 4 Theatre at 2:40 p.m.

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