(Tokyo) Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi, who won the Oscar for best foreign film at the end of March with Drive My Carrepeated on Tuesday his “surprise” to have received this honor, but said he was ready to “take up the challenge” of a Hollywood film if he had the opportunity.
Posted at 9:50 a.m.
“Until the last moment, I was convinced that the Oscars and my life were two things that had absolutely no connection,” the 43-year-old filmmaker first told a press conference in Tokyo on Tuesday. in the presence of the producer of the film and its main actor Hidetoshi Nishijima.
The 51-year-old veteran actor, who starred in, among other things, creepy by Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Dolls by Takeshi Kitano, thinks that the success of the film is due in part to its universality and “to the fact that the protagonist has lost a loved one and seeks to continue living despite everything. »
“This film depicts a glimmer of hope and maybe that’s what touched people,” he said.
Inspired by short stories by Haruki Murakami, the three-hour river feature had already won numerous distinctions including a Golden Globe and a Bafta, and the prize for best screenplay at Cannes.
Asked about the possibility of shooting a Hollywood film if he had the opportunity, Ryusuke Hamaguchi revealed that he had received valuable advice from the Chinese Chloé Zhao, director of nomadlandcrowned at the Oscars a year earlier.
” She said “Stay healthy“(stay sane), words that I found very important” coming from the director who went from indie to Marvel superhero film The Eternals.
Ryusuke Hamaguchi, however, said he was ready to “take up the challenge”, provided that the subject of the film and the conditions allow him to “keep his feet firmly on the ground”.
Hamaguchi is the fifth Japanese director to receive the Oscar for best foreign film, preceded in particular by the icon of Japanese cinema Akira Kurosawa in 1952 with Rashomon. The last Japanese film to receive this honor was Departures by Yojiro Takita, in 2009.
Spirited away by Hayao Miyazaki was also crowned best animated film in 2003.
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s film was also selected for the Oscar for best film – a first in the history of Japanese cinema -, and those for best director and best adapted screenplay.