"Yamajo" Director Takeshi Fukunaga Humans are complex and multifaceted [Director's Interview Vol.328]

“Hope” entrusted to Anna Yamada

Q: Anna Yamada, who plays Rin, is very modern, and even though she lives in poverty, there is no sense of tragedy. Please tell us what made you decide to cast her and how you directed her.

Fukunaga: That was the deciding factor. If someone with a sense of despair played the role, it would be a story without hope. I wanted to portray a protagonist who would not succumb to the harsh reality and ugly side of humanity. To do that, I needed to choose someone who had the kind of aura that would make it okay to go to the mountains alone, such as the sparkle in their eyes, their presence, their strength and nonchalant feeling. Yamada himself possessed all of these things. Also, Rin has no place in the village and goes into the mountains, so it's better for her to feel a little out of place in the village. If it were the other way around, it wouldn't work. When we were actually filming in the mountains, Yamada was very familiar with nature.

“Yamaonna” ©YAMAONNA FILM COMMITTEE

Q: I was surprised by the casting of Mirai Moriyama and his role. What did you focus on in embodying the "mountain man"?

Fukunaga: If I couldn't properly portray the Mountain Man, a unique presence in the film, everything would fall apart at once. It was a very important role in the entire film, and it was very difficult to create the character. I tried and tested many things to achieve the perfect balance, such as a human form but something different. Moriyama-san is someone who uses physical expression and is interested in life and death and beings beyond human, so I think that these are some of the things that created the presence of the Mountain Man. As for the character's appearance, we had many discussions with Miyamoto-san, who was in charge of costumes, Hyakutake-san, who was in charge of special effects makeup, and Moriyama-san, and we worked on it.

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