"Midnight Swan" Director Eiji Uchida I want to give back to the movie that saved me [Director's Interview Vol.79]

To get many people to watch it

Q: The flow of the story in "Midnight Swan" was interesting, and I got the impression that the script was well thought out. Has the script been developed for some time?

Uchida: I wrote the script about five years ago, but after Kusanagi-san was cast in the role, I had a lot of people read the script and listen to their opinions as I revised the script.

This time, instead of hoping that only a few people would support it, as we have done with indies, we tried to have it seen by as many people as possible, including people who like Kusanagi. Seed.

There are many scenes where I was worried about what I should do to get more people to accept my work. Up until now, I had been making movies thinking, ``Many people don't matter!'' (lol), so that dilemma was a big one.

Q: Director Uchida's works, like `` Jyudo '' (17), seem to center around the theme of ``people seeking their own place to belong.'' Are you aware of anything about that?

Uchida: That story is sometimes brought up, but I wonder what it means. I was born and raised in Brazil and came to Japan at the age of 11, but from then until I was 20, I felt alienated for quite a long time. I couldn't find anything like a place for myself in Japan. After I returned to Japan, my Japanese wasn't very good, so I was bullied. I really hated Japan, but I didn't want to.

I don't know for sure if that's related or not because I'm not consciously aware of it, but maybe that's where the theme comes from.

Q: I think this is also a characteristic of director Uchida, but all the characters that appear are very deep and attractive. There are some easily recognizable characters who seem to be amplifications of stereotypes, but I feel that this makes the work more allegorical.

Uchida: If anything, I prefer things that are easy to understand, rather than things where I can't understand the nuances of emotion. It's fine if the characters go too far, but if they go too far, it loses reality. We cover that through interviews and include as many authentic episodes as possible.

Different performances for Tsuyoshi Kusanagi and Kisaki Hattori