Tales of Chance
, a subtle and delicate triptych, was awarded in Berlin in March 2021, a few months before the success of
Drive My Car
by Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi at Cannes.
The three stories that make up this film have in common a very fine writing and an assured romantic character.
Without forgetting the rare talent of Ryusuke Hamaguchi to always manage to capture the mystery of yet elusive female figures.
He had to conduct interviews with his actresses or discuss with friends in order to better understand their questions and problems to feel more legitimate to approach the female roles with such acuity.
“Enjoy being surprised by the unexpected in the world.
This is Ryusuke Hamaguchi's invitation through his
Tales of Chance
, a subtle and delicate triptych that won an award at Berlin in March 2021, a few months before the success of
Drive My Car
at Cannes.
Three independent parts follow one another: a curious love triangle, an attempt at seduction (or manipulation) that goes wrong and finally, a chance meeting born of a misunderstanding.
Three clever stories conceived by this former student of Kiyoshi Kurosawa as so many portraits of daring women faced with their choices not to let chance alone decide their destiny...
“These three tales are the first in a series of seven with the theme of “coincidence and imagination”, explains the director in the press kit.
Coincidence has always interested me.
Showing it is a way of affirming that scarcity is the very essence of the world, more than reality itself, and I realized how exploring this theme offered unpredictable narrative perspectives.
Enough to draw a sentimental territory with winding crossroads that could be located between Eric Rohmer and Hong Sang-soo, where lightness and gravity constantly alternate in a loving pas de deux.
Rohmer, but also Hawks and Cassavetes
“I have the work of Eric Rohmer in mind almost every time I make a film, confirms the filmmaker.
But before him, two other filmmakers attracted me: Howard Hawks and John Cassavetes.
Their approaches are a priori very dissimilar, but Eric Rohmer, in my opinion, succeeded in making them converge, and in this sense in giving me solutions to reconcile them.
He is therefore for me a founding filmmaker, who showed me the way to follow to synthesize the content and the form.
Hong Sang-soo's influence is less, although I am aware of the many similarities between his work and mine.
In my eyes, Hong Sang-soo paved the way for the transposition of Rohmer's cinema into Asian culture.
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These three
tales of chance
have in common a very fine writing and a confident romantic character.
Without forgetting the rare talent of the filmmaker to always manage to capture the mystery of yet elusive female figures.
“I've always been more attracted to women's careers, justifies Hamaguchi.
Perhaps I wanted to set myself a challenge by approaching the portraits of women because it seemed more complex to me.
He had to conduct interviews with his actresses or discuss with friends in order to better understand their questions and problems to feel more legitimate to approach the female roles with such acuity.
“Above all, I understood that for the female characters to be truly embodied, I had to delve into my innermost being and solicit my own intimacy,” he adds.
build a character,
The surprises of the unexpected
Each segment of
Tales of Chance
is marked by long conversations followed by real twists, and even stunning scenes such as when a young woman settles in the office of a university professor to read him the erotic extract from the novel. which he has just published.
A disturbing game of cat and mouse then takes place, the fall of which catches the spectator unawares.
And this despite the warning at the beginning and the announced pleasure of “being surprised by the unexpected”.
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