The 28th Busan International Film Festival will be held from the 4th to the 13th.
Meeting for ‘Kyrie’s Song’, an invited film in the Window of Asian Cinema category
'Love Letter' director Shunji Iwai attends
Meeting for ‘Kyrie’s Song’, an invited film in the Window of Asian Cinema category
'Love Letter' director Shunji Iwai attends
At 4:30 pm on the 6th, a meeting was held for the movie ‘Kyrie’s Song’ (directed by Shunji Iwai) in the training room on the 8th floor of the U-dong Film Industry Center in Haeundae-gu, Busan. Attending the meeting that day were director Shunji Iwai and actors Aina the End, Suzu Hirose, and Hokuto Matsumura.
On this day, Director Shunji Iwai said, "I came to the first Busan International Film Festival with a film called 'April Story.' It is a film festival that has developed along with my career, so I feel close to it like brothers and classmates." “I’m really glad I could come,” he said. He then said, “It was nice to meet a new generation of young fans yesterday,” and “Please take good care of me.”
He said, “I thought it was impossible to express a movie with the theme of an earthquake. What I could do was how to deal with the earthquake on a personal level.” “Everyone has a personal experience or experience of being indirectly affected by it, so I thought about how to deal with it,” he said.
Director Shunji said, "I drew this story a year after the earthquake, but at that time, the story was not complete to reveal and the ending was not completed, so now, 12 years later, I decided to express it as 'Kyrie's Song'." “I made this film because disasters such as the tsunami are not a problem that has been solved, but something that must continue to be dealt with,” he said.
Director Iwai then talked about the short running time and editing. He said, "First of all, in Japan, it is shown in theaters as a 3-hour edited version. However, because each country has different sentiments, there was a request to shorten it to 2 hours, so it was very difficult for the director. This film is a 2-hour movie and a 1-hour performance. It is a film made possible. An important part of editing to 2 hours was to refrain from editing the music as much as possible. It was really difficult to make a 2-hour version. However, I hope that the audience who watched the 2-hour version will be interested and watch the 3-hour version. “I do it,” he said.
Director Iwai, who did the mixing himself, said, "I tried to preserve the feeling of busking. Usually, when producing music, I first pick the music in the studio and film the performance scene to match it, but this time, I wanted to deliver the lively song and live performance as is. Gina “I wanted to give the feeling of listening to busking that I heard on the way,” he said. “I wanted to recreate that feeling, so I measured the distance to that building, calculated how many seconds it took for the reflection to arrive, and recorded it. This was a really enjoyable experience.”
In particular, Director Iwai said, "I thought it was necessary for the flow of the story" regarding Kirie being sexually assaulted in the work. I paid homage to several sequences. I was greatly influenced by director Masahiro Shinoda, and one day I asked him to watch ‘Kyrie’s Song.’ Perhaps, after watching ‘Wandering Goze Orin’ and watching ‘Kyrie’s Song,’ there were some homages and representations. “You will feel this many times,” he explained.
Hokuto Matsumura, who played the role of Natsuhiko, said about running to find loved ones, "I don't think it was a sense of responsibility, and I think there were various emotions such as a sense of justice and responsibility that I didn't understand," and "I ran 41 km with feelings that I didn't even understand." “I interpreted it as running and acted,” he said.
Lastly, Director Shunji Iwai said, "After making 'Love Letter,' whenever Korean audiences met me, they always greeted me with 'Ogenki Desuka.' Since then, Korea felt like a friendly relative. 30 years have passed since then. “The fact that I am still able to function in good health is a miracle in itself,” he said. “I am proud and happy that I was able to produce and deliver works with the young and talented friends sitting next to me today. Of course, there are heavy points, but the younger generation “I think it is a film about youth,” he said.
'Kyrie's Song' is about three people: 'Kirie' (Aina the End), a street musician who speaks only through singing, 'Ikko' (Suzu Hirose), a friend who erased herself, and 'Natsuhiko' (Hokuto Matsumura), a man looking for his missing lover. An emotional story that tells a secret story. It is scheduled to be released domestically in October.
Busan Choi Ji-ye, Ten Asia reporter wisdomart@tenasia.co.kr