A Conversation wth Kei Chika-Ura (GREAT ABSENCE)

Kei Chika-Ura is a writer, director, producer & editor hailing from Japan. Early in his career he forged a connection with legendary Japanese actor Tatsuya Fuji. Since 2013’s Empty House. Kei has strictly created projects with Tatsuya. This includes his feature debut Complicity which premiered at TIFF in 2019. Kei’s latest effort is Great Absence which he wrote, directed, produced and edited. The film follows Takashi (Mirai Moriyama) as he rekindles with his father (Tatsuya Fuji) after learning of his dementia diagnosis. The film unfolds like a dementia memory, scattering timelines. I was enamored by the accuracy of this depiction of the disease as well as the emotional scope. It should be seen in a theater to embrace its incredible textures. It expands to further theaters this week. It was a pleasure to sit down with Kei in the following conversation edited for length and clarity.

Hammer to Nail: What was the inception of this project?

Kei-Chika-ura:  Back in January of 2020. My debut feature film had been released in Japan in theaters. I completed this film in 2018. It had its world premiere in Toronto. That production was totally independent so it took longer to get distribution. This gave me time to work on my second feature film. By the time the film was released in 2020 I had the script ready for what I thought would be my second feature film. This turned out to be completely separate from Great Absence.

Around the time of the release Covid hit the world. Right when Covid hit I got a call from the police in Kyushu. They told me that my father called in distress. He told them he was being held hostage by a man with a gun. I got in my car and drove 6 hours to Kyushu. When I got there it turned out nothing like that had happened and my father actually developed dementia. His wife and the armed robber were not there. It was just him alone in the house. The Covid pandemic and my father’s dementia, those two things gave me a totally new perspective on the world. I decided to abandon the script I had written and start totally fresh on a story based on this situation. I am a film director because of my father.

I lived in West Germany as a little kid and I would go to the cinema with him every weekend. He was a huge cinephile. The first movie I saw in theaters was Every Man for Themselves by Jean Luc Goddard. I do not remember going since I was 4 but he always told me that was the first movie I saw. That memory is still important to me even though it is his. That’s why for this film I felt like I needed to overtake his body and his memories with this film. It felt important for me to make it.

HTN: You can definitely feel how personal the film is

KC: Yes, it is very personal but totally fiction.

HTN: I’d like to talk about casting. How did Mirai, Tatsuya, Yoko and Hideko join this project?

KC: For Tatsuya, when I was in highschool I saw In The Realm of Senses, and since then I decided I would write films for him. I always wanted to make his signature film. My first short film I wrote the script for him. I brought it to his manager and he wound up starring in the short! Since then I have not merely cast Tatsuya, I have made the films alongside him. For Mirai, this character is very difficult to act. It is not very emotionally up and down.

He is very stable and silent. Mirai was my first choice. He is an amazing actor in films and theater. He is also an incredible contemporary dancer. I needed his physicality, not in an eccentric way, in an extremely stable way. For Hideko it was pure aspiration. The film PP Rider is quite popular in Japan. This  was the first time in 40 years that Tatsuya and Hideko starred in a movie together. I wanted to reunite them. Yoko is incredibly photogenic. Just through her image she can talk. This role did not have much dialogue, normally Yoko would not take a role so small. I wrote her a long letter and persuaded her into the film.

HTN: You are reunited with  Yutaka Yamazaki for this film and it is shot in 35mm…Why was it important for you to shoot this on film and what about this story called for 35mm.

 KC: The most important reason for the 35mm is not just the look, it’s the pure admiration I have for the technology. In Japan there is only one film shot on 35mm per year! Great Absence was the one for 2023. It was an obligation for cinema.

HTN: The music and sound design play such an important role in this film. What were you hoping to achieve with this lush but at times sinister score?

 KC: I was not able to achieve everything I wanted to sound design wise in my first feature film. I must admit, the sound in Complicity is quite weak. Before shooting this one I searched for a very good sound mixer. Finally I found a great recording mixer and she asked me who my fav sound designer was and I said Cyril Holtz.  Surprisingly, Cyril was her teacher! We immediately had a great relationship. Miki Nomura did an amazing job with this. We had a lot of time to work on the sound and we did. We spent around 4-6 months just working on the sound.

HTN: I would love to hear about your screenwriting process. Do you treat it like a 9-5?

KC:  I treat it close to a 9-5. I am writing every single day. I have 5 scripts I have not shot.

HTN: More on that screenwriting process. The film has a scattered chronology, unfolding like a dementia memory in a sense. Did you write this film in the order it appeared on screen?

KC: It might be scattered but it is very structured. It has two timelines. The present timeline and the recent past timeline. The recent past timeline progresses chronologically and by the end it catches up to the present timeline which starts the film. The reason why I adapted this kind of a structure was because it was similar to the symptoms of dementia. The audience will experience it like a dementia patient. In the middle of the film the audience begins to know things that Takashi does not, which is essential to the film. At first you think everything will come from his perspective but in the middle of the film the audience begins to see things Takashi will not. I did not want to make that obvious so I scattered it. I did not want the audience to be cautious of that. The order as it appears on screen is in fact the order I wrote the script in.

HTN: There are a fair amount of films about dementia….most recently something like The Father. This film is obviously very personal, however, I am wondering if you watched any films in preparation?

KC: Yes, of course. The Father was a big hit in Japan as well, so I watched it. Films like The Father offer a perspective on dementia from the viewpoint of those suffering from the condition, giving crucial insights into how they perceive the world. In contrast, my film doesn’t delve into the perspective of the dementia patient. Instead, it observes the condition from the outside, using it as a device to ignite a kind of mystery. The father has the perspective of the patient. The audience gets to experience what it’s like to have the disease. This film is quite the opposite. We do not delve into the patient. We see it from the outside, which makes this film a mystery. It is meant to feel kind of like a mystery film.

HTN: I feel like the costuming for Yohji (Tatsuya Fuji) was very specific. It’s really the most realistic depiction of dementia ive seen from the subtleties of his performance to the details of the costume. Was the clothing something you guys heavily considered? There is notably that sequence with his broken belt.

KC: Yes, we paid a lot of attention to the costumes. They were designed to symbolize the social trust he had before developing dementia. In fact, even after my father developed dementia, he always kept his clothing neat and tidy. He would even tie his necktie properly. I found the contrast between his spoken words and his neat appearance to be cinematically intriguing. The broken belt was meant to reveal a certain childlike aspect of his inner self. A lot of people saw this moment as a reconciliation between father and son. I did not. I see it as a swap between the protector and the protected.  My father was a university professor. We did not have the best relationship but he was a very reliable and good person in society. He always kept his clothing very neat and tidy even after dementia.

HTN: A moment that stuck with me at the 44 minute mark is when Yohji goes to stop the car and on accident it jolts forward. When Hideko laughs he remarks “It is in poor taste to laugh at people’s minor mistakes.” She responds “yeah, yeah, I’m sorry.” This subtle moment really nails the frustration of this horrible disease. What was your thinking behind this moment?

KC: You are the first one to mention this scene. I am very happy to know that you care about this scene. It was very important to me. That moment represents the serious disconnect between an early-stage dementia patient and those around him. It shows the gap between Yohji , who is already aware of his dementia symptoms and feeling anxious, and Naomi (Hideko Hara), who doesn’t see it as seriously. If Naomi had taken it as seriously as Yohji, she wouldn’t have reacted that way. It is a painful moment for both the audience and Yohji. I put the scene as the start of this tragedy.

HTN: I think his speech in Tokyo is a very important and fascinating moment in the film. Can you talk about your thinking behind it?

KC: That speech scene is one of my favorite moments in the film. It’s one of the few glimpses we get of Yohji as the distinguished university professor he was before his dementia. It also represents his final “social” task—a speech honoring his mentor. In that speech, he talks about a crucial idea: the passage of time. He expresses the desire to step aside with pride for the next generation, even if he has built something substantial. This idea is fundamental in the academic world, but it also offers profound insights into life, living, and dying.

HTN: At the hour and 18 minute mark we get this very emotional strife between Mirai and Naomi’s son. Why is this fight essential to the stories’ thematics and the emotional arc of Mirai?

KC: In this scene, the protagonist, who has become a kind of “detective,” presents evidence of Naomi’s son’s lies as the result of his investigation, trying to get him to reveal the truth about Naomi’s whereabouts. However, the conversation takes an unexpected turn when Naomi’s son has an emotional outburst. This outburst makes the protagonist feel as if he has woken up. He realizes that this emotional explosion is probably not a lie; it reveals Naomi’s son’s genuine feelings. This recognition makes the protagonist aware that he is an outsider who knows nothing. Because of this scene, the protagonist decides to go to Kumamoto, even though he has almost no leads.

HTN: The hour and 22 minute mark, Hideko reads Yohji beautiful words back to him and he responds saying “DO NOT UPSET ME, Using another person’s name to speak another person’s mind?!” He then throws the book. This central miscommunication, pain that has spawned out of love…it’s an overwhelming moment. please talk about your thinking and what you were going for with the camera angles.

KC: This scene is extremely important. Every shot’s composition, the placement of the camera, and the focal length of the lenses were meticulously calculated. The significance of this scene is, firstly, that until then, the audience has only been shown the existence of this diary from Takashi’s perspective. Takashi has only read aloud the letters from his father that were pasted into Naomi’s diary. However, it’s important to remember that this is Naomi’s diary. She has pasted Yohji’s letters into her own diary, so naturally, there should be entries from Naomi responding to those letters. In this scene, for the first time, those entries are read aloud in Naomi’s own voice. After Naomi finishes reading Yohji’s letter, the camera zooms in on her hands. When she turns the letter’s page, Naomi’s diary entry appears underneath, and the reading begins. It’s a very moving moment.

If you pay attention to the camera angles, you’ll see how carefully they were calculated. For example, the shot where Yohji looks despondent while listening to Naomi’s reading.

The camera is positioned quite low in that shot, almost as if looking up from beneath the table. Initially, the cameraman suggested a normal height for the shot, but that wouldn’t have worked for the flow of the scene. So, I made several demands to ensure each shot was perfectly controlled.

HTN: At the hour and 30 minute mark Yohji is asking for forgiveness. I found this moment fascinating because you start to think is he doing this because he actually feels bad or he wants a clean slate before death? What was your thinking behind this and if you could talk about your ideas with forgiveness in this film. Clearly a central theme.

KC: I don’t like to explain everything about my films, but I believe this scene can be interpreted in many ways. Also, no one knows if what Yohji is apologizing for is actually true. Only the protagonist, Takashi, knows that. What do you think, based on Mirai Moriyama’s expression? Does the protagonist feel truly hurt by the violence, angry at his father, and unwilling to forgive? Or is he confused because he’s being apologized to for something he doesn’t remember, and being pressured to say “I forgive you”?

There are many possibilities, and each one can drastically change how this scene is perceived. This ambiguity is not about avoiding a conclusion but reflecting the nature of life itself. I wanted to include scenes in the film that resist being fully explained or interpreted in a single way.

HTN: When Mirai faces the facetime out into the water and he begins to read this gorgeous but painful story. Given the context, the poem spliced with imagery of the water and Yohji walking around confused & sad. All of this combined with the swooning music. It’s one of the best moments of the year in any film! How did this poem come to be and what were you going for with this kind of montage?

KC: I’m very pleased to hear you say that. What I aimed to achieve here was to have the “present timeline” and the “recent past timeline,” which had been depicted alternately up to this point, blend and intersect across time and space. So, when Takashi, acting as his father, shouts “I love you,” Naomi, bathed in sunset light in another timeline, turns around as if called by someone. This scene, where they intersect at a delicate distance, ends with Yuki mentioning the sea that was reflected in the Facetime camera pointed toward the ocean. She simply says, “It’s a beautiful sea.” This ending can be seen as a symbol of the entire film. Despite all the various aspects of human life—conflict, hardship, mistrust, illness, aging, and separation—I wanted the film to become a celebration of humanity. I believe this sentiment is captured in Yuki’s final words that close the scene.

– Jack Schenker (@YUNGOCUPOTIS)