naomi kawase – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

THE WOLF, THE FOX AND THE LEOPARD (Tribeca 2025) – Review by Sherin Nicole

June 16, 2025June 17, 2025 Sherin Nicole David Verbeek, dutch films, Jessica Reynolds, Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen, Marie Jung, naomi kawase, Nicholas Pinnock, the wolf the fox and the leopard, Tribeca 2025

I’m not going to start this review in the usual way but with something akin to a recap of its opening moments and part of the first act. I know you’re likely wondering why, and it’s because those scenes, literally, hit me in the head: Making its world premiere at Tribeca this year, The Wolf, the Fox and the Leopard begins with a radio scan, scrolling through the news of several natural disasters caused by climate change. A woman begins to narrate over a black screen in Japanese: “In the beginning, there was no story…” We see the tops of green trees: “The forest was breathing in and out peacefully. But a fever was taking hold of the world. An era was ending…” We drop to the forest floor, where brown and green ferns reach upward, searching for the light: “And it was precisely at this crucial time that she would enter our world.”

Reviews

RADIANCE – Review by Jennifer Green

April 22, 2023April 22, 2023 Jennifer Green Ayame Misaki, japanese films, Masatoshi Nagase, naomi kawase, Radiance

Radiance doesn’t spell out its messages, but rather asks its viewers to interpret them on their own. Likewise, the story turns on a woman, Misako Ozaki (Ayame Misaki), whose work involves interpreting films for the blind. She writes the audio descriptions of films, interpreting all non-dialogue scenes for a film. She’s made to test them on a focus group of blind viewers, whose honest feedback makes clear how challenging and creative her work must be.

Reviews

STILL THE WATER – Review by Liz Braun

February 23, 2023February 23, 2023 Liz Braun japanese films, Jun Yoshinaga, naomi kawase, Nijiro Murakami, still the water

Nature and spirituality centre the quiet drama of Still The Water, writer/director Naomi Kawase’s 2014 feature covering life, death and the whole damn thing.
Kawase’s film unfolds in a slow and languorous fashion, leading with hypnotic visuals of the ocean and the landscape of the Japanese island of Amami-Oshima, where the director has family ties. Still The Water seems to be treading water at times, given its pace and its meandering storytelling, and all the talk of death and love and spirituality and nature is sometimes confusing. The film is always engaging to look at, but the characters seem involved in a search for meaning that leads nowhere.
That might be the point.

Movie of the Week Reviews

MOVIE OF THE WEEK January 29, 2021: TRUE MOTHERS

January 24, 2021February 12, 2021 Jennifer Merin Aju Makita, betsy bozdech, Cate Marquis, Hiromi Nagasaku, japanese films, jennifer merin, leslie combemale, liz whittemore, loren king, marina antunes, maryann johanson, naomi kawase, nell minow, nikki baughan, Pam Grady, Sandy Angelo chen, susan wloszczyna, True Mothers

Motherhood — in all its complexity — is at the heart of Naomi Kawase’s drama True Mothers, which tells the intertwined stories of Hikari Katakura (Aju Makita) and Satoko Kurihara (Hiromi Nagasaku). Their circumstances are very different, but they both fiercely love the same little boy, and that love ultimately helps each better understand the other.

Reviews

TRUE MOTHERS – Review by Susan Wloszczyna

January 21, 2021January 25, 2021 Susan Wloszczyna Aju Makita, Hiromi Nagasaku, japanese films, motw, Movie of the Week, naomi kawase, True Mothers

As someone who was given up for adoption as an infant, True Mothers couldn’t help but touch my heart and souL. What most got to me about Japanese filmmaker Naomi Kawase’s touching drama about a well-off Tokyo couple with an adopted 5-year-old son were the two mothers at the center of the story. The message that matters? That maternal love can come in many forms.

Festivals Reviews

TRUE MOTHERS (TIFF20) – Review by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

September 22, 2020September 22, 2020 Alexandra Heller-Nicholas 0 Comments Aju Makita, Hiromi Nagasaku, japanese films, naomi kawase, TIFF, toronto international film festival, True Mothers

True Mothers is first and foremost a movie about feeling in every sense of the word. Naomi Kawase’s emphasis on ‘feeling’ is harmonized as physical and emotional; the film is punctuated by a steady stream of close ups of hands, highlighting their gestural capacity to communicate complex feelings without words, but also to connection with another person through touch.

General Archives Reviews Women on Film

SWEET BEAN, THE LITTLE PRINCE, KRISHA, DIVERGIANT: ALLEGIANT and more Mar 18 Openers — Reviews by Jennifer Merin

March 19, 2016March 21, 2016 Jennifer Merin 0 Comments 10 cloverfield road, allegiant, ben foster, brainwashing of my dad, divergent series, jen senko, krisha, lance armstrong, little prince, miracles from heaven, naomi kawase, patricia riggen, shalene woodley, sweet bean, thank you for playing, the bronze, the channel, the program

Naomi Kawase’s Sweet Bean is a beautifully told tale set in a Tokyo neighborhood pancake shop, where delicious jam, cherry