Writers: Kei Ishikawa and Kazuo Ishiguro
Directed by: Kei Ishikawa
Although Kazuo Ishiguro described his debut novel as a “very bad book”, A Pale View of Hills with its gentle, elegiac tone, has a lot to recommend it. While Ishiguro has box office form with The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, A Pale View of Hills, adapted and directed by Kei Ishikawa, is his most characteristic work.
The story is split over two time periods, one in 1950s Nagasaki, the other in 1980s England. An ambitious journalist, Niki (played by Camilla Aiko), travels home to see her mother, Etsuko, to dig further into the family history. We know that Etsuko left Nagasaki with Niki’s father in the 1950s, but that she also lived through the traumatic event of the atomic bomb in 1945. 74,000 people died. An estimated 38,000 were children.
At first, Etsuko is reluctant to open up, but as they talk about their recent history, most notably the suicide of Niki’s older sister, Keiko, Etsuko (played in her older years by Yoh Yoshida), reminisces about life in Nagasaki. The film details Etsuko’s married life to her first husband, Jiro (Kohei Matsushita). While Ishikawa bathes 1950s Japan in pastel tones, this landscape is not imbued with nostalgic grace. Ishiguro draws our attention to the workload undertaken by a younger, newly-pregnant Etsuko (Suzu Hirose). The expectation of freshly-cooked meals and a spotless home is just for starters. In one scene, she fans her husband and father-in-law, as they play a relaxing game of shogi. When Etsuko makes friends with a neighbour, Sachiko (Fumi Nikado), eyebrows are raised as Sachiko does not conform to the stereotype of a modest and loving mother. Embroiled in an on-and-off-again romance with an American soldier, Nikado emphasises Saichko’s unlikeable qualities. Her child, Mariko, runs wild in the streets and regularly goes missing. While Etsuko is alarmed (there have been a spate of child murders in the area), Sachiko is unconcerned. She is set on moving to America and leaving post-war Japan far behind.
Thematically, the film has a lot of ground to cover. There is the psychological impact of surviving the atomic blast: Etsuko, Saichko and Mariko all bear scars. We also have the disconnect between the older Etsuko and her daughter, Niki. While Niki has only lived in the UK, Etsuko’s link with Japan means she is not fully at home in either country. A Pale View of Hills repeatedly returns to the metaphor of unacknowledged trauma as a living thing. It is no accident that we see the older Etsuko in her garden, tending Japanese plants alongside the native species.
A Pale View of Hills does have issues. This is very much a slow-burn experience: Ishiguro doesn’t do short and snappy. Ishikawa tends to be overly cautious with the source material, but as an exploration of a post-war society on the brink of change, the film is at its best. The performances are strong across the board, and while this is a careful adaptation, there is plenty to admire.
A Pale View of the Hills is in UK and Irish Cinemas from 13 March.
