Vision Review

Movie: Vision
Romaji: Vision
Japanese: ビジョン 

Director: Naomi Kawase
Writer: Naomi Kawase
Producer: Naomi Kawase, Marianne Slot
Cinematographer: Arata Dodo
Actors: Juliette Binoche, Masatoshi Nagase, Takanori Iwata, Minami, Mirai Moriyama, Min Tanaka, Mari Natsuki

Aside from straight up adaptation or movies based on Murakami's novels, Vision is perhaps the movie that resembles Haruki Murakami's novels the most. A man living in solitude, the lyrical dialogue, dream-like atmosphere, deep thought provoking quotes and even the magical realism elements of his novels exist here. This is the type of movie that the conclusion is not as important as to how you would interpret the movie. I like that feeling personally, me being part of the movie and not just me staring at the screen and waiting to be entertained. A movie that is more of an experience is better than any movie even how much entertaining it is.

If there's a director that could rival Hiroshi Ishikawa(Petal Dance, Su-ki-da) in terms of the slow pace in a movie it's Naomi Kawase, and this movie of her is not an exemption. Having said that this movie could be the slowest movie you will ever watch so it's definitely not for everyone. You should also be in the right mood when you watch this as it is not that easy to digest type of movie. There are scenes that are full of ambiguity, and the chronological order became convoluted at the middle part, to be honest the way the scenes overlap from past to present too much is what I like the least about this film.

Even if you don't like the narrative there's no way you won't like the relaxing ASMR-esque vibe thru the visuals and the sound in this movie. There are only few directors that you would know whose film it is just by looking at its visuals and Kawase is part of that group. The aerial camera shot of the forest, sunlight dancing through the leaves, huge trees swayed by the wind like bamboo, tear-shaped falling raindrops, characters blend in a nature background. Kawase's documentary like camera work is also quite evident. It's no secret that Naomi Kawase movies are like the Makoto Shinkai of live action movies. It has minimalist music or almost no music at all; all you could hear are the sounds of the forest, raindrops, chopping of wood etc. The movie did brilliant in capturing those sounds. Have you ever wanted to watch a movie and feel relax at the same time then this one is for you.

I can't say anything about the acting but brilliant. It is ten out of ten on that aspect. Nagase did a great job of portraying a strong silent type character who is longing for love. Binoche is compelling, plays this woman of words effectively, she always say fascinating facts in every conversation. Binoche is not your typical foreigner actor in a Japanese movie, just look at her imdb page and see her filmography. Nagase and Binoche have this unspoken chemistry together, they had converse in English a bit but there's something magical when they mix Japanese & French in their conversation, two of the best sounding language in my opinion. The best performance though comes from Mari Natsuki who played this self proclaimed 1000 year old blind woman Aki. Her peculiar characteristics played by Natsuki convincingly. She played the principal in Chugakusei Nikki, talking about a total 360 compared to that role.

Compared to other Kawase films, It is not as good as Sweet Bean, it even falls short compared to Still the Water, but definitely better than Radiance.