Another year, another British filmmaker venturing outside of their comfort zone to make a Japanese-language feature (a great trend, long may it continue).
Ravens is Mark Gill's sophomore feature. His first, England Is Mine, explored the early life of iconoclastic musician Steven Morrissey before he became the frontman of seminal band The Smiths. Ravens similarly delves into the past, this time to uncover the personal and interpersonal histories of singular (and internationally underappreciated) photographer Masahisa Fukase, who produced, among other works, a striking photobook from which the film draws its title.
To bring the man to life, Gill has enlisted Tadanobu Asano, perhaps the finest actor of his generation - at once leading man and idiosyncratic character actor. Opposite Asano is a humanoid raven -- a beautiful feat of practical effects and costuming -- who disrupts this domestic drama with foul language and biting, (self-)critical remarks.
Ravens is a unique beast, so it was a pleasure and a privilege to sit down with Gill and Asano, as the film has its East Coast premiere at New York Asian Film Festival, to discuss the film's interiors, its emotions, and the real-life figure at its heart.
Mark, this is, regionally, quite a departure from your first feature, but they're both biographical films tackling challenging and troubled figures. Was there a conscious thread between the two projects, and what led you to Fukase's story?
Mark Gill: It wasn't a conscious thread, no. I'm just attracted to that kind of character. I think, as a creator, you live that kind of life in some ways, but maybe not to the extremes of Fukase.
I'm a huge Japanophile, so I was surprised when I discovered this article in The Guardian about a Japanese photographer [who] I'd never heard of. The focus of the article was Yoko and their marriage. I did some research, and got in touch with a Canadian academic who had been to an interview with Yoko about fifteen years earlier and had written a paper called Becoming a Raven. Once I read that, I thought -- oh my god, this is an unbelievable film. Then begins the challenge of convincing producers to come with me. "Let's try and make a Japanese movie". My agent was just like, what are you doing?
Now the film's out. Everyone's happy.
Asano-san, you've played many tragic figures across your eclectic career who are emotionally expressive in unexpected bursts - these emotions sort of spark out of you. I think of RAVENS, I think of films like ICHI THE KILLER and PICNIC. What do you draw upon to craft such successfully introspective performances? What gets you in touch with that emotion?
Tadanobu Asano: With someone like Fukase, who actually existed, his life is unknowable to me -- it's something that I need to create within my imagination. Then I have to take those things that I've constructed in my imagination and turn them into a reality.
It's the same with a role like mine in Ichi the Killer. I have to think a lot about what isn't contained in the script -- whether it's just what's in between the lines or in between scenes, or what happens outside of the script itself. And to try to think about all of the things that come before that burst of emotion that you were describing. And then tying up all the loose ends within myself, to the point where I can perhaps describe their memories without having any reference to them. That's how I work on these types of films.
How much did you know about Fukase prior to taking on this project?
TA: Embarrassingly, I didn't know anything about him.
What did you think as you started to unravel this story and speak with Mark about what you had discovered together?
TA: At first, I was just grateful that Mark had brought such an interesting project to me. But then I realized that, the more I read into it, the more I didn't understand about the character. Particularly in regard to his relationship with Yoko - there was something there that I couldn't grasp.
Luckily, there was an exhibition of his work that I was able to go see. Looking at the photos of Yoko, I found that there was some kind of strangeness there that I couldn't quite understand. And, because that strangeness existed, it made me think that there's something within their relationship that maybe just isn't legible to me on the surface. So I then had to rely on my imagination to build up what that something could be, and use that as a hint towards building out their relationship and my character.
Mark, tell me about the practical costuming used to create the raven. It's something that feels rather 2000s about the film - I really love it.
MG: Yeah, I didn't want to use VFX, and I certainly wouldn't be using bloody artificial intelligence, I'll tell you that! And I needed a presence for Asano to interact with. Like you suggested, Pan's Labyrinth was a big inspiration for us. It's just something about the texture - and the fact that it's tactile and there in the room. Obviously, we did a little bit of enhancement -- putting the blinks in, and a little bit of facial manipulation -- but that's how I think VFX should be used.
Nothing beats it being in the cameral it was as simple as that. I'm not an old school filmmaker, but I am a Spielberg kid. I grew up watching Spielberg, and everything was in camera as much as it could be in his early films. And it worked. We didn't know this was going to look so good on camera until we got it on camera, but once we did, we were totally convinced by it.
Thinking more on being in the room, I'm impressed by how effectively you use these interior domestic spaces - - considering that you yourself are not Japanese and these are intrinsically Japanese rooms. It's especially impressive in the lighting department. I'm curious as to what influenced your approach to shooting these interiors.
MG: I mean, beyond the fact that they're beautiful to be in and to look at, I didn't over-obsess about them. What was more important is that Asano and the cast could walk onto the set and feel that it was going to enhance their performance.
I was more conscious of keeping it quite simple and unintrusive. I like it when you don't spot the director in movies, and I certainly try my best not to be seen. Obviously, a lot of the interiors are similar to Ozu films. We avoid the tatami camera shot as much as possible; you can't do that, because he owns it. We tried to just play around with those ideas, but keep it simple and elegant; then it kind of reflects Japanese aesthetics.
When you're working from a figure who is themselves a photographer, how does that influence the visual look of your film? Did you find it challenging to forge a visual identity for a film that's building off someone's visual identity?
MG: Yeah, we did discuss this; how much we were going to do. Fernando [Ruiz, the film's cinematographer] asked me if I wanted to reflect Fukase's work, and I just thought there was no point, because his body of work is quite diverse. There are certain photographers in the world who are great at one thing, and they're fantastic at that. I always describe it as music, and Fukase is like Radiohead; he just does what he wants, with amazing craft. And so we didn't. In the end, I think other films are more of an influence than Fukase's own photographic style.
I'd love to know from both of you: how would you categorise this film? It has biographical elements, and also elements that perhaps lean more towards the fantastic and genre. Obviously, this is more a question for your marketeers and distributors, but I'm curious about your own thoughts.
MG: I've always thought it's just a love story. It's a heightened, kind of fantastical love story. When you're an English filmmaker trying to make a Japanese-language film about an unknown photographer, you need to keep the marketing like "it's a love story". That's how I got it made.
TA: I think of the film as a fantasy. The presence of the raven wasn't actually in the first script. When the director rewrote it, and I learned that this character would be part of the film, it really increased the fantastical elements, but it also made it so much richer; it was like a flower blooming. I was really saved by the presence of the raven, because it was as if there was an extension of all the things that I couldn't express as the character himself.
Ravens enjoyed its East Coast Premiere at the New York Asian Film Festival. With thanks to Monika Uchiyama for translating for Tadanobu Asano.