Sometimes the most striking films are those that are softer somehow - sensitive and acutely felt. Hiroshi Okuyama's 2024 Un Certain Regard-premiering My Sunshine is one such film.
Hokkaido pre-teen Takuya plays ice hockey with the other boys in his spare time. On the way out of the rink one day, he finds himself lingering, his gaze gravitating towards a young girl who moves with care, consideration, and poise across a space that he himself had previously occupied in a different fashion.
As if magnetised, he signs up to learn figure skating alongside her, guided by a teacher whose queer home life clashes with the sensibilities and expectations of others around him. Soon all three will be forced to consider how they fit into this configuration and who or what they ultimately want to be.
Okuyama's subtle drama skated its way gracefully into US theaters last week courtesy of Film Movement, and we sat down with him to discuss the considerations he made in order to craft such a beautiful gesture.
I want to start by discussing the film's aesthetic, which I really love. There's an unusually bright white and baby blue palette to these winter scenes - and everything is given a slight soft focus, resembling the view through a car's windshield for example when fogged up or lightly coated with snow. How did you land on this aesthetic approach, and what inspired it?
The film is set around the turn of the millennium. I think the reason why I arrived at this aesthetic is that I wanted the texture of the image to reflect that time period.
Yours is one of a number of Japanese films in recent years that explores LGBTQ+ identity through allusion and gradual discovery rather than making the specifics of that queerness specific or explicitly stated. Other examples include Hirokazu Koreeda's MONSTER and Shun Nakagawa's KALANCHOE. What sparked your interest in exploring LGBTQ+ themes with a lightness of touch and a gentle curiosity?
My reasoning for including LGBTQ+ characters is that, frankly, I just really like films that deal with those types of issues, and I knew that I wanted to include those types of issues in my films. But it's not just about sexuality - it's also that one of the characters has a stutter, or the fact that Sakura doesn't have a father.
Each of the protagonists of this film experiences a kind of loneliness or isolation, and I wanted to make a film where - across the period of one winter - they are able to support one another and be by each other's side. When I was thinking about the possible reasons for a person being lonely, I organically came to those types of identities.
There's a lot of looking in this film - in recognition of someone else, or in recognition of the self through looking at someone else. And we too as spectators of course mirror that relationship. How do you approach capturing that act of looking? It must be difficult to make cinema that focuses on what we internalise rather than externalise.
Yes, this idea of perspective - of eyeline or gaze - was very important to me, and something that I took close care in depicting. Specifically, when someone is looking at someone but that person, the object of their gaze, is not looking back at them. I think that type of disconnection is a fundamental example of when people aren't really connecting.
So I was very careful in depicting that, but I also knew that it was necessary for there to be scenes where the characters' eye contact does meet, and they do recognise each other. I think one key example of that is the scene where they're skating together on the pond - that is a moment of true connection.
Was Masayuki Suo's film SHALL WE DANCE? an influence on this film?
It's not a film that I was particularly thinking about when I made this film, but I do really love Shall We Dance?.
A key motif in this film is the struggle to get the words out. Do you feel that cinema can communicate feelings about ourselves and others that we can't put into words, and was that something you were consciously seeking to achieve with this film?
Yes, specifically in regards to the theme song that plays during the credits, "Boku no Ohisama" (My Sunshine). That song begins with lyrics that translate to "I can't say things well with words, I stammer at the first sound". I think that kind of experience isn't limited to people who have a stammer, I think it's something universal that we all experience - and that's a feeling that I wanted to convey in this film. Films primarily convey and communicate through images, not words, so it's a motif that I was thinking about.
You're a young filmmaker - we're of the same generation, in fact. It strikes me that there are many Japanese filmmakers of our generation currently emerging and making their mark - especially at Cannes, where yourself, Yoko Yamanaka, and this year Danzuka Yuiga, all premiered films. What is your sense of this current moment and landscape - do you feel something is shifting?
It's hard to say as a person of this generation whether this is necessarily a changing over of generations, but the two directors that you mentioned, Yamanaka and Danzuka, yes, of course, screened at Cannes. I think that for a long time, many film festivals had the same Japanese directors screening over and over again, and it was through that period where stars like Hamaguchi and Fukada emerged. I think that a lot of film festivals are now actively trying to seek out who is that next big director.
So because they're actively searching, maybe that's why we're being chosen to screen. I think it's thanks to the efforts of these film festivals that audiences are really interested in seeing more films from young directors in Japan.
I don't think that right now specifically is a period where a lot of talent is emerging - I think that talent is constantly emerging - but it's just that it's matched up with this period of effort from film festivals and audiences to seek out new directors.
What does an ice rink as a space mean to you - either personally, or in terms of its potential as a cinematic and dramatic space?
I spent a lot of time on skating rinks as a child, so for me it's a place of childhood memories. But as a cinematic space, I actually don't think it's really that cinematic. Every skate rink besides the one that we chose for this film, has very flat lighting, and because they want to prevent the ice from melting, they block out light from the outside. So it's actually a place that's very hard to film. We had to search all across Japan to find the one we actually landed on - the most cinematic skate rink possible.
What do you hope your audiences take away from this film?
I want audiences to feel free to receive and interpret the film in any way that they want - but there is one thing that I think about. There's a famous poet in Japan, Misuzu Kaneko. A certain line from one of her poems translates to "everyone is different, but everyone is good".
I think that's a message that I want people to receive - that whether it is something about your sexuality, or whether you have a stutter, people should be unequivocally accepted for who they are. I hope that this film really affirms everyone's identities, and helps to foster a type of society that is simply accepting of people.
My Sunshine is in playing in select US cinemas now, via Film Movement. Visit the official US site for more information. Thanks to Monika Uchiyama for translating.