Ryusuke Hamaguchi, the acclaimed filmmaker behind Happy Hour (2015), Drive My Car (2021), and Evil Does Not Exist (2023), has won a devoted following among film audiences worldwide. His latest film, All of a Sudden, generated major buzz at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, where stars Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto jointly won Best Actress.
Hamaguchi’s films are often long, dialogue-driven, and philosophical, yet they also possess a strange, irresistible accessibility. What is the secret behind that appeal?
To coincide with the release of All of a Sudden, we sat down with Hamaguchi to explore what makes his films so compelling. What emerged was not simply the perspective of a cinephile auteur, but that of someone who still approaches cinema first and foremost as a viewer.
Please note: this article contains discussion of the film’s content.
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Would My Younger Self Watch This?
Before we get into All of a Sudden, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you. You may not agree with this characterization, but I’ve always felt your films have a kind of unexpected accessibility to them.
Hamaguchi: Unexpected accessibility [laughs]? Thank you.
Born December 16, 1978, in Kanagawa, Japan. His graduation film PASSION (2008), produced at the Graduate School of Film and New Media at Tokyo University of the Arts, first brought him critical attention.
His five-hour, seventeen-minute feature Happy Hour (2015), starring four first-time actors who had participated in an acting workshop, won major awards at international film festivals including Locarno. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021) received the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival, while Drive My Car (2021) won four prizes at the Cannes Film Festival, including Best Screenplay, before going on to win the Academy Award® for Best International Feature Film.
Evil Does Not Exist (2024) received the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival, making Hamaguchi only the second Japanese director after Akira Kurosawa to have received major awards at the Academy Awards and all three of Europe’s leading film festivals: Cannes, Berlin, and Venice.
His latest film, All of a Sudden, won the Best Actress Award at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, shared by Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto.
I remember casually saying to a group of friends, “There’s something oddly inviting about Hamaguchi’s films.” It unexpectedly turned into a whole conversation because everyone seemed to agree. So I thought I’d ask you directly — what do you think it is?
Hamaguchi: You mean, even though they don’t look like the kind of films that would be inviting? [laughs]
Exactly. [laughs] All of a Sudden is 196 minutes long, and many of your films have substantial runtimes. They’re also full of philosophical conversations, so they’re often seen as the work of a challenging auteur. And yet, once you’re in them, they never feel inaccessible. People seem to slip into your films with surprising ease. There’s a real pull to them, but it’s a very different kind of appeal from spectacle or entertainment.
Hamaguchi: (Leaning forward in his chair.) I think that’s probably because, at heart, I’m still just a moviegoer. I know how much easier it is to watch a film when there’s something that immediately draws you in.
As you watch more films, your idea of what makes something engaging changes. You start noticing subtler things and realizing, Oh, that’s compelling too. But most audiences don’t watch films that way. So I’m always thinking about how to help people enter the world of a film without asking too much of them.
There’s also the reality of being an independent filmmaker. Every film matters. If one doesn’t perform well, there’s no guarantee you’ll get to make the next one. So of course I care whether people enjoy watching my films. It’s never been about making films only for myself.
Hamaguchi: So if you ask me when I know something is going to work… I think it’s when, as a viewer myself, I can honestly say, This works. That’s the feeling I keep coming back to whenever I’m choosing the material for a story.
I’ve spent enough time watching films that my eye has changed over the years. But there was a time when I knew very little about cinema. That’s still where I begin. I always find myself going back to that version of myself and asking, Would he understand this? Would he enjoy it?
When you say “that version of yourself”…
Hamaguchi: I mean the person I was before I really knew much about film. If I were to make something simply because it’s considered “good,” but that younger version of me wouldn’t have understood it, I feel like he’d laugh at me.
In a book you published in 2024, you open by recounting the experience of falling asleep during one of those so-called “difficult” films. It suggests that your relationship with cinema before you became deeply immersed in it remains an important reference point for you.
Hamaguchi: Oh, I still fall asleep all the time. [laughs] If anything, now that I’m in my forties, if I watch a film after lunch, you can pretty much count on me nodding off.
