``I'm a fool, so please bear with me. ~Welcome Home, Mom~'' Director Naoko Nobutomo A record of 21 years crystallized from footage discovered by chance [Director's Interview Vol.196]

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2022.03.26Tetsuya Inagaki

A documentary released in 2018 titled ` `I'm a Blur, so please take care of me.'' ' was an unprecedented hit, attracting 200,000 people to theaters across the country. Director Naoko Nobutomo has created a unique world that could be described as a ``VR family documentary'' that can be experienced through her by documenting her mother, who is suffering from dementia, and her father, who is caring for her, from the daughter's perspective. Four years have passed since the previous work, and the sequel ``Bokemasukara, Thank you very much.'' ~Welcome Home, Mom~'' has been completed.

This film deals with issues such as caring for parents and caring for the elderly, and while maintaining the style of an ``experience movie,'' it also features a more in-depth production. Since I am also a producer of TV programs, I asked Director Nobutomo about the behind-the-scenes aspects of production from the perspective of a fellow producer.

This interview will have a different feel before and after watching the film, so please read it twice.

Index

After accidentally discovering the tape, he decided to make it into a movie.

Q: This work is based on the previous work “Bokemasukara, thank you.” This is a sequel to ``'', but first of all, please tell us about the production process.

Nobutomo: The previous work was originally part of a project for a program on Fuji TV called "Mr. Sunday." Producer Hama-san asked me to continue filming my parents even after making the first movie. During that time, there was a major change in my life when my mother suffered a stroke and passed away, and that was broadcast as a special feature on the program. Then, producer Nishimura of ``The Nonfiction'' saw it and said, ``We can make it into a one-hour program, so we want you to do it again with ``The Nonfiction.'' So we re-edited it and broadcast it. .

I had made a one-hour version, so I was thinking, ``I wonder if there's anything else I can do with this,'' and then footage from my father and mother's past came out of the closet at home. That was the big impetus for making it into a movie. The video was taken by a professional photographer and captures my mother's everyday life, such as going shopping, cooking, and eating with my father. It was a really nice image and I thought, ``Ah, this is cinematic.''

In the previous work, I shot it with just my handheld camera, so it had a sense of closeness, but it didn't have a cinematic feel. However, I thought that if I set up a tripod and included beautiful images with careful lighting and composition, it would become something different as a non-fiction piece, so I decided to make it into a film.

Q: If that footage hadn't been discovered, it wouldn't have been made into a movie, so it feels like you were guided by fate.

Nobutomo: I really think so. I discovered the footage right after my mother passed away, so I felt like she was saying to me, ``You've forgotten that there's a tape like this in a place like this, right?''

Q: The images used in the movie are impressively beautiful, almost like a dream.

Nobutomo: In 2009, I made a documentary for ``The Nonfiction'' called ``Boobs and Tokyo Tower - My Breast Cancer Diary.'' I took pictures of myself with breast cancer and my mother taking care of her, and although I was able to capture close-up footage, I couldn't capture anything else very well. That's why I asked Mr. Minami, a photographer I trust, to come to my parents' house in Hiroshima and take pictures of the scenery and interviews with my father and mother. At that time, as a service, he also took pictures of my father and mother's daily life. After that, I forgot about the existence of that footage, but without that footage, I think it would probably have ended up with the same taste as the previous work.

I started photographing my parents for practice.

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