Five years after her most recent feature film True Mothers, Japanese director Naomi Kawase has stepped behind the cameras once again to continue her investigation of Japanese society, its taboos and its paradoxes. Presented in a world premiere in competition at the Locarno Film Festival, Yakushima’s Illusion tells the story of Corry (a psychiatrist played by Vicky Krieps) who lives in Kobe where she treats children awaiting heart transplants. By her side is Jim (played by promising Japanese actor Kanichiro), who’s a free-spirited, aspiring photographer whom she met on a trip when she’d only just arrived in Japan and who later disappears without a trace.

From the outset, Corry’s character is fairly enigmatic, and we know very little about her. What we are told is that she’s a woman who comes from Paris, who lives in Kobe and who works as a paediatrician. It’s only later, through information cleverly distilled via flashbacks which take us back three years in time, that we discover the source of the aura of sadness which seems to accompany her. It turns out that it was the death of her father, who was widowed when Corry was born, which drove the latter to leave France to experience working life in Japan. Although the film’s protagonist starts a relationship with adventurous Jim who struggles with the routine in his life, the loneliness which inhabits Corry never seems to leave her, as if it were an intimate part of her being. Jim’s sudden disappearance only reinforces this sense of urgency and transience, turning the film into a reflection upon our deep-rooted desire for stability.

It’s this very question of the transience of life which connects Jim’s disappearance - who becomes one of the numerous “Johatsu”, people who vanish every year in Japan - with the heart transplants Corry oversees. In both cases, it’s the family who decides whether the individuals involved – the missing people or those awaiting a new heart – can be declared dead. The film teaches us how the concepts of life and death are connected to the perception we have of them and the particular culture we belong to. Is it the death of the brain which determines the end of a life, or whether the heart is still beating? This is the first question every family has to answer. In the west, organ transplants are seen in a positive light, as a necessary option, but in Japan they’re a taboo subject which results in an alarmingly low number of organ donations made. The idea that our own life depends in some sense on somebody else’s death does create a strong sense of guilt in those requiring the transplant. Thanks to Corry, her alternative stance on the subject, her patience and her determination, her patients and their families are able to escape the guilt weighing down upon them.

Yakushima’s Illusion is both intriguing and thought-provoking, urging viewers to reconsider their own views on life, on what really matters and on the occasionally crazy ambitions which stymy our daily lives. What if, as Corry suggests, the aim of life was quite simply to remain in the hearts of the people we love?

Yakushima’s Illusion was produced by Cinéfrance Studios and Kumie Inc. (Japan) in co-production with Tarantula (Belgium), Viktoria Productions (Luxembourg), Pio&Co (France), Prod Lab (France) and Marignan Films (France). Cinéfrance International are handling world sales.