May the audience be gentle and kind. 91 year old director Yoko Yamada: New work tells the story of love between elderly people Yoko Yamada | Mother | New work
The news that 91 year old Japanese director Yoji Yamada is coming to the Shanghai International Film Festival and attending a film screening is somewhat surprising. Yamada Yoko's 90th directorial work, "Hello Mom," is one of the participating films in this year's Golden Earl Awards main competition unit and premiered worldwide at the Film Festival. The character who plays the role of "mother" in the film is the familiar Japanese actress Yoshihiro Kobayashi from Chinese audiences. At the age of 78, she shines beautifully and elegantly in the film, making people stare at her as if age is just a decoration on her body.
For Yoji Yamada, age is like a grinding stone, and with dark glasses on his face, there is no expression on his face. When answering questions, he often has to think for a long time. It's hard to imagine an old man with snow-white hair who needs someone to help him up the stage, making such a fresh and delicate movie that makes young people cry. Facing the media, he humbly said, "I am old and not smart enough. Please treat my new work with a tolerant attitude and be gentle."
"I have been to the Shanghai International Film Festival several times, and I feel very familiar." In 1995, Yoji Yamada participated in the second Shanghai International Film Festival, and many of his works were nominated for the Golden Earl Award or screened at the Shanghai Film Festival. He also won the Best Director Award. He remembers the year when he won the Best Director award. The Shanghai Film Festival was like a lively and grand banquet, with a band performing at the red carpet ceremony, which surprised him. Now, as he enters his thirties, the Shanghai Film Festival gives him a sense of composure. "I have met Director Xie Jin here and had dinner together. I feel very happy. Unfortunately, he is no longer here. I am honored to bring my new work to Shanghai this time."
Yamada has come to the Shanghai Film Festival many times. This is a photo of him and Wang Jiayan, a senior film platoon at the Shanghai Film Festival. Wang Jiayan provided it.
"Hello Mom" tells the love story of an elderly person, and is known as the "Mother Trilogy" along with Yoko Yamada's previous "Mother" and "If We Live Together". Yoji Yamada said that she didn't initially think of filming a trilogy, "this work is different from the mothers she used to shoot.". The human resources manager Akio, played by Yoshihiro Oizumi, strongly opposed his long widowed mother Fukawa's falling in love. However, he later accepted his mother's request to find a new relationship. "In fact, my mother has also experienced divorce and remarriage, just like in movies. During adolescence, my son would become entangled and opposed to his mother's love, experiencing pain. However, later on, I realized that my mother was my father's wife, but also a woman, and experiencing love was a natural thing."
Hello Mom, the male protagonist Yoshihiro Oizumi is a popular Japanese actor in the mature stage of acting. Yamada Yoshitaka commented, "He was able to interpret the role according to my expectations, and I think it was very excellent." Yoshihiro Yoshihiro was playing the role of her mother for the third time, and when it came to collaborating with her, Yamada Yoshihiro said, "In the film, my mother also has a granddaughter, a grandmother, which Yoshihiro Yoshihiro has never tried before. When I invited her to play, she happily agreed to me, and I am very confident."
Behind the love story of the elderly, "Hello Mom" reflects the social reality of Japan. Zhao Fu, who works as a human resources manager in a large company, lives in a high-end apartment. The difficult work problems make him tense every day. To make matters worse, he is on the brink of divorce from his wife, and his relationship with a college daughter is not always smooth sailing. Going to the old city area of Tokyo to visit his mother Fukawa, in the old house where beautiful hydrangeas could be seen by opening the door, and listening to his mother's gentle words, Akio gradually gained a sense of inner peace.
"There is a river in the center of Tokyo that divides the city into two sides. The west side has a lower terrain, while the east side has a higher terrain, making it a more modern and fashionable area. People living on the east side may not look up to ordinary people in the west. My previous film" The Story of Inajiro "also tells the story of ordinary people." Yoji Yamada said that in the movie, Akio went to a more upscale area to live and became the backbone of a large company through his own efforts. "The work and life at the top are not stable, so the male protagonist needs to go back to the bottom and start a deeper story."
The granddaughter in the movie firmly supports her grandmother's love and even excitedly says "I've had it". Some reporters are curious about how Yoji Yamada views young people's views on love. "It's hard to answer." Yoji Yamada pondered for a long time before saying, "In the eyes of her parents, the granddaughter in the movie is not an excellent child. She doesn't want to go back to her high-rise apartment home, but prefers her grandmother's house, which is an environment where there is no need to lock the door and access is free. This conveys her values in love, not being bound by fame, not caring about status, income, and status." He admitted that filming relationships with elderly people is difficult, and unlike shooting relationships with young people, "they cannot develop like young people. There are many difficulties in filming, and there is also a lot of my thinking behind them."
The meeting ended slightly earlier than the scheduled time, and the lighting on site seemed to make Yoji Yamada uncomfortable. He occasionally wiped the corners of his eyes. But in the media photography segment, he still stood very cooperative in front of the rushing flashes for a long time.
When it comes to the upcoming creative work, he said, "I don't have any ideas yet and I want to take a break. If I have any creative work in the future, I hope to make movies that are relatively easy and light hearted. Many Japanese movies now have a lot of troubled content, perhaps because it is a difficult period now, but the more difficult it is, the more I hope to let everyone see happier movies."
