Ryûsuke Hamaguchi • Director of All of a Sudden
“In the dark, the boundary between the self and others becomes more ambiguous”
- CANNES 2026: The Oscar-winning director talks about his first international project and working across languages
The Oscar-winning Japanese director of Drive My Car, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, has returned to Cannes with his first film set (partially) outside of Japan. In the French-Japanese co-production All of a Sudden, Virginie Efira stars alongside Tao Okamoto as the director of a care home in Paris with a backstory of having lived in Japan, who befriends a Japanese theatre director who has studied at the Sorbonne. The two characters are at the heart of this 196-minute film replete with philosophy, discussions of ethics and disability, as well as an examination of how precious the newfound joy of living is. Cineuropa met up with the director after the film’s premiere in the Cannes official competition to discuss his first international project and working across languages.
Cineuropa: An important line in the film refers to “making the impossible possible”. Do you think your film achieves that, in some way?
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi: I think that's something we'll only find out after some time has passed. I’m saying this only because in order to assess whether this film has really accomplished anything, we need time. Even though we’ve received a good reaction from the audience here and people say they believe in the movie, which is great, we still have to wait. Ultimately, it takes time for the film to go on its journey to meet audiences.
What about on set?
While we were making the film, I think there were things that were made possible, and one of them was the actors being the characters. At times, Virginie Efira just seemed like she was Marie Lou, and Tao Okamoto seemed like she was Mari. To be made to believe that they are their characters is not an easy task at all – it's actually a big feat in a way because fundamentally speaking, it's impossible for somebody to become somebody else.
How did you communicate this to Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto?
This is something that I tell my actors: that since complete identification [with the characters] is an impossibility, I ask them not to do anything extra [for the role]. The more you add, the more your intentions start to show, or discomfort starts to show. I always tell them to express what they feel is real, and as a result of that, I believe that on set, at times, Marie Lou and Mari were there and having an exchange together. Or, at the very least, these two actors, these two people, were having a mutual connection. And as a result of that, they also seem like they were Marie Louie and Marie; it seems like these two characters do, in fact, exist. That in itself, I think, is a big accomplishment.
It really shows, especially since so many scenes take place indoors, or walking around in Paris or in Kyoto. How did the night-time settings of those scenes influence the bond between the two main characters?
I guess my question to you would be, don't you think that the conversations that you have at night and during the day are fundamentally different?
Of course.
I, too, believe that daytime conversations tend to be more logical, in a way. The logical side of our thinking tends to be more active, which I believe is because, in the light, you can actually see the outlines better. You can see objects as separate from one other. On the other hand, in the evenings, with darker lighting, or perhaps in a club, there’s more intimacy in the experience. As the outlines of things become less clear in the dark, the boundary between the self and others also becomes more ambiguous. For example, there's a long conversation about capitalism in the middle of the film – at a different time and in a different light, the nuances of it would not have been the same. In the film, it’s during nighttime, but if it were, in fact, set during the day, it would have felt more like a lecture and less like an intimate exchange.
Theatre has played a role in Happy Hour and Drive My Car, but here, it emerges in a new form. What was it like doing theatre with finger puppets?
Oh, the finger puppets! That was something I employed for the first time and… well… I was, in fact, quite worried about whether it was going to work or not. At the point when we were about to shoot the scene, I was thinking, “Oh, I've got to the point where I'm doing something like this!” But the two actors who were performing it were having fun – you could tell from the way they moved their fingers within the frame. And so, as a result, I also had fun with it.
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