Great Absence
CHIKA-URA Kei 近浦啓
大いなる不在
Ōinaru fuzai

Japan
2024
133
Colour
English
subtitles

Alienated from his father Yohji for twenty years, Takashi is brought back home by a jarring police call. Yohji has dementia. He is no longer in touch with reality and his second wife Naomi is missing. To find out what happened, Takashi has to reconstruct the life story his father is no longer able to put in the right order. This deft, complex and heart-wrenching drama is a beautifully shot journey through long-lost memories and scattered fragments of lives.

Takashi is al twintig jaar vervreemd van zijn vader Yohji, maar krijgt een onverwachts telefoontje van de politie. Yohji is dement en ver verwijderd van de realiteit, en zijn tweede vrouw Naomi wordt vermist. Om erachter te komen wat er precies gebeurd is, moet Takashi het levensverhaal van zijn vader reconstrueren, omdat zijn vader dat niet meer in de juiste volgorde kan plaatsen. Dit knappe, complexe en hartverscheurende drama is een mooi gefilmde reis langs lang verloren herinneringen en versnipperde levensfragmenten.

CHIKA-URA Kei 近浦啓 learned the ins and outs of the film business working for several production companies before embarking on his own filmmaking career in 2013. After receiving recognition for a number of shorts, he made his first feature length film in 2018, Complicity. He shot his second film, Great Absence, on 35mm. The film won the Silver Shell for Best Leading Performance (FUJI Tatsuya 藤竜也) at the San Sebastian International Film Festival in 2023.

2023 – Great Absence 大いなる不在 (CJ 2024)
2018 – Complicity – コンプリシティ