INDEX
I Consider Myself Someone who Harbors Considerable Doubts about Marriage and Couple
-Aki and Naoto are a married couple, but what did you think about portraying a married couple?
Kusano: I didn’t really think about that (laughs). (laughs) At the time, I had not even registered my marriage, and even now, after marriage, I still consider myself a person who is very suspicious of married couples and marriage. That’s why I didn’t direct it in detail even then. Looking back on it now, I am amazed that the actors were able to do so well.
-I have the impression that such doubts about marriage led to the way you portrayed the character of Naoto, played by Tomomitsu Adachi.
Kusano: I had the image of a person who was overly longing for a “family,” which is bracketed. In order to create that bracketed “family,” he is willing to sacrifice himself and speak out strongly against others.
I think that Mr. Adachi’s portrayal of the husband, who is, to put it bluntly, a bit of a moral harasser, pulled Satoshi Kasajima, who plays the role of Nochika, into his role as well. Mr. Adachi, who has a lot of experience on set, was a pillar, or rather, it was as if there was a straight line that ran through the film, and his presence was really significant.
-In the film, Naoto has to act strongly as a father in order to maintain the “family”, and I thought that for Aki, Nodoka, who is raising the child, seems to be tied down in some ways. I feel that this was one of the reasons why Aki had no choice but to kill her child, as I mentioned earlier.
Kusano: This is a personal story, but I myself do not share household chores with my spouse at all. I don’t think we would have been able to be together without that kind of person.
However, my mother was a housewife and lived with my grandparents on my father’s side. My grandparents were strict people, and my father was a very hard worker. So I had the impression that I was confined to the house, with my mother not being able to go out at all and doing housework all the time. I think this influenced my own craftsmanship. I feel that my mother’s way of being must have been quite intense as a present experience.
-In the final scene, when Aki kills Honoka, Nodoka’s daughter, Ms. Kasashima, who was supposed to be playing the role of Nodoka, screams in response to Honoka’s complaints, and Mami Shibuya, who plays Aki, responds to her. It was a scene that gave me a strange sensation as if a daughter and a mother had switched places.
Kusano: The reason why I wanted Ms. Kasashima to say Honoka’s lines only in that part was completely based on a hunch I had on the spot (laughs). (Laughs.) It was just a hunch, but probably somewhere in the back of my mind, I wanted to make Honoka and Notocha sound like each other.
By doing so, I think he intended to make the person who commits the murder more convincing, or to create something that could be one of the reasons for committing the murder.
-I was moved to tears the first time I saw it, and it was my favorite scene.
Kusano: Thank you very much.
