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<\/a>The film\u2019s main characters, Marie-Lou (Virginie Efira, at right), and Mari (Okamoto Tao), quickly warm to each other.<\/p>\n
Hamaguchi was inspired to make the film by the book Ky\u016b ni guai ga waruku naru (A Sudden Turn for the Worse), credited as the original work in the film. Written by philosopher Miyano Makiko and medical anthropologist Isono Maho, it was published in September 2019 as a series of 20 letters exchanged by two women roughly the same age over a period of three months, beginning in April 2019 and ending just three months later. Miyano, who had been undergoing cancer treatment for eight years, passed away on July 22 at the age of 42.<\/p>\n
Conversations on Life and the Philosophy of Contingency<\/p>\n
In the book, the phrase that gives the film its title appears early on in the letters between the two. When Isono asks Miyano to present a talk at a workshop she has organized, Miyano tells her that \u201cmy doctor has told me that I could take a sudden turn for the worse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Isono knows that Miyano has stage 4 cancer, but those words upset her. She begins wondering how a risk full of uncertainty, expressed through the doctor\u2019s words, could limit a person\u2019s activities and change her. Nowadays we often hear expressions like \u201crisk management\u201d and \u201csafety and security,\u201d but who are those words for? Based on what she has seen or heard in her fieldwork in medical settings, Isono questions Miyano about issues concerning life and society, illness and death.<\/p>\n
Miyano, for her part, interrogates her experience and her feelings through philosophy, her field of specialization, based on G\u016bzensei no mondai (The Problem of Contingency), a work by the Japanese philosopher Kuki Sh\u016bz\u014d (1888\u20131941). This topic fortunately happened to coincide with Hamaguchi\u2019s exploration of his approach to filmmaking.<\/p>\n
The correspondence between the two scholars gradually shifts to soul-searching. Despite the profound nature of their exploration, their exchanges retain a natural feel. The two respect each other and yet are flexible in expressing their feelings and weaknesses to each other, and they derive hints from their plain, unpretentious exchanges.<\/p>\n The pair\u2019s letters interpret each other\u2019s arguments appropriately, revealing their serious side as scholars who think logically and coherently. Hamaguchi could have expressed this verbally, as his films are known for presenting somewhat standoffish conversations that suddenly go to the heart of the matter and erupt into heated discourse. But here, the correspondence steadfastly circles back to happenstance.<\/p>\n An Encounter between France and Japan<\/p>\n Some time after Hamaguchi had begun thinking of creating a film based on the book, he happened to be approached by a French production company. He immediately set about a drastic reworking of the source material, building a story of French and the Japanese protagonists. The film takes place in France and Japan, the characters emerging against a richly detailed background.<\/p>\n Marie-Lou, the character based on Isono, is a Frenchwoman who has studied cultural anthropology at a Japanese university. In France, she operates a seniors\u2019 home based on a progressive concept. Mari, the character representing Miyano, is a Japanese playwright who once studied philosophy in France. The two are presented as being able to communicate in both Japanese and French.<\/p>\n The two happen to meet by chance in a Paris park, where Mari is distributing flyers for a play she is staging. A few days later, Marie-Lou, mulling over difficulties with the staff at her seniors\u2019 home, decides on a whim to go and see the play, and the two meet again at the theater. Instantly on the same wavelength, after the play they talk through the night and forge a deep relationship. As Mari confesses that she could suddenly become unwell, Marie-Lou accepts the reality that Mari is facing.<\/p>\n Just as someone may suddenly fall ill one day, they could just as abruptly encounter their soulmate. Life is filled with innumerable possibilities, and one possibility may lead to another. Although her meeting Mari seems like a random happening, to Marie-Lou it feels like a fate-defining moment. In the same way, Mari sees Marie-Lou as the key to a new path forward. Even though they have just met, the women use each other\u2019s presence to work their way through the problems they had been facing until then.<\/p>\n<\/a>
Marie-Lou talks to Tomoki (Kurosaki K\u014ddai), who has gotten lost.<\/p>\n<\/a>
Marie-Lou comes across Mari and Gor\u014d (Nagatsuka Ky\u014dz\u014d, second from left), who has been searching for his grandson Tomoki. Gor\u014d is the actor in a one-man play that Mari has written.<\/p>\n<\/a>
The two meet when Mari gives Marie-Lou a flyer advertising her play.<\/p>\n