Translation: Kiyoshi Kurosawa in Positif

On self-remakes, direction and more

“To Influence and Suggest”

Interview with Kiyoshi Kurosawa
By Nicolas Geneix and Hubert Niogret

During the COVID pandemic, cinema came to a halt. You went on to make three films afterward. Were they conceived during that specific period?

The three projects developed entirely independently from one another. The scripts for Cloud and Serpent’s Path were already written before the lockdown. Chime was conceived two years ago, and everything moved very quickly. Filming followed closely after the writing of the script.

You’ve said that in remaking your own 1998 film Serpent’s Path, you wanted to reclaim the subject and create a film that felt more your own. Can you tell us more about that?

It wasn’t my idea to initiate the project - it was a French producer who proposed that I remake one of my films, giving me the choice of which one. I rather quickly chose Serpent’s Path, which was originally written by Hiroshi Takahashi. He’s a friend and very well-known in Japan for films like Ring, and his script was excellent. It tackled what seems like a simple theme, revenge, but explored its complexity. It’s a subject that can resonate in any country. However, one of the two main characters was originally a kind of monster, a machine driven by violence, very interesting to film but something I could never have written myself. I wanted to give that character, now portrayed as a woman, more human traits than in the original, without making her ordinary. That was an important element in this remake.

Remakes exist all over the world, but self-remakes are rarer, though one might think of Yasujiro Ozu in Japan. As a director, how does it feel to revisit a film you made more than twenty years ago?

When I think of self-remakes, Alfred Hitchcock comes to mind: in 1956 in Hollywood, he remade The Man Who Knew Too Much, which he’d originally made in 1934 in the UK. So when I started this project, it didn’t seem so unusual to me. Still, I avoided rewatching the original film. I relied on memory and recollection. Then I asked myself what to keep and what to change. Finding the balance between what I remembered and what I wanted to alter was fascinating.

During filming, the scenes that weren’t in the original seemed easy to shoot. The ones I kept were harder. We were in different locations, with different actors and camera setups. Especially on that last point, I gave it a lot of thought. The tough question is whether to recreate the shot as before or do it differently. For example, in the original some shots had the camera on the left, but given the lighting or background in the remake, it made more sense to place the camera on the right.

Between Foreboding and Before We Vanish, there are many similarities, but they’re not quite self-remakes. How would you distinguish between a self-remake and a self-variation?

Yes, I tend to make the same kind of film, variations or sequels of a sort, and I find that enjoyable. When I make a film and feel I didn’t quite accomplish what I intended, or couldn’t bring certain ideas to life, it gives me a second chance. Having made a first version gives me confidence that the structure works. That’s why I felt more secure, for example, in Before We Vanish, especially when dealing with the aliens.

In Pulse, the Internet already plays a role, though not in the same way.

It’s true that certain motifs or themes recur in my films: the Internet, firearms, murder. Or the relationships between men and women, lovers or spouses, who’ve lost trust in each other but want to regain it. Unconsciously, I gravitate toward these themes that matter to me, and they reappear as structural elements. It may be the limit of my imagination, but I find it impossible to begin with something I’ve never imagined before.

Your directing style is extremely clear, simple, and rigorous. There are few camera movements, mostly pans. Most often, the camera is fixed.

Today, in the digital era, cameras are smaller and lighter, giving us more freedom of movement. But I’ve shot a lot on film, and for me, knowing where the camera is placed is fundamental. That position determines everything else: the actors’ placement, how they deliver lines, how the lighting is done… Some methods give actors more freedom to move, with the camera following them. But I think that freedom can also be limiting. We mustn’t forget that the audience only sees what’s in the frame, even if the camera moves. Their imagination fills in what lies outside it. If the camera reveals too much of the surroundings, we lose some of what the viewer might imagine. I prefer a static camera. If it moves, it’s for a very specific reason. Camera placement is a foundation from which I build everything else. It’s partly a matter of style, but I also believe it makes what’s onscreen more expressive.

The ending of Cloud is striking, and we’re not entirely sure what we’re seeing. Many of your films deal with the visible versus the invisible.

That scene was hard to shoot, but I’m fairly happy with the result. Certainly, the mix of the visible and invisible creates a sense of strangeness for the viewer. I often ask: what should be shown? And based on what is shown, what do we want the audience to feel? If we merely withhold an image, the viewer feels nothing. To film the invisible, I film something that suggests what isn’t shown, or evokes the presence of what’s not there. To influence and suggest - that’s really what I try to do in all my films, to communicate what the character on screen is experiencing.

For the final scene of Cloud, our team debated where the car was driving. Some thought the characters were returning to Tokyo; others believed they were entering a strange new world. In the end, we mixed both ideas: you see buildings in the distance, but also strange clouds… I hope I managed to convey the sense that they’re approaching an unfamiliar Tokyo.

Isn’t the central theme of your films that two realities coexist, that there is always something beneath appearances?

Isn’t that also a description of cinema itself? What we see onscreen closely resembles our reality, but something is different. It’s like facing an alternate reality - that’s what the experience of cinema is. It’s vital to me, and it’s also rooted in the fact that I started out working with film and a Super 8 camera. Today, with digital, we get images very close to reality, whereas film produces images that resemble reality but differ from it. For instance, shadows become even darker. If something is out of focus, it becomes a vague blur, with strange light effects. When I watch the rushes, I feel the unique power of cinema.

Your films sometimes explore "metaphysical" themes, but in a concrete way, through materials or textures.

There’s no specific message I’m trying to convey. It’s more about taste: things that come from the unconscious and take shape as images. I place the camera, use light, and if from that the audience finds something to think about or interpret, then I’m happy.

That’s just my way of doing things. Other filmmakers focus on the actors, their performances, their expressions. That’s interesting too, and actors are obviously important. But focusing only on faces limits the possibilities of cinema. That’s why, in my films, actors are sometimes shown from behind or even off-screen, with only their voices heard, to show or convey something else to the viewer.

In your recent films, as in earlier ones, the world is drained of color. In Serpent’s Path, the little girl’s red dress stands out against the cold atmosphere. Chime also presents a colorless world - metallic tones dominate the kitchen scenes.

I didn’t consciously try to remove color, but the stories are tragic. Serpent’s Path and Cloud are set in abandoned places. For Chime, I requested a setting where the worktops were aluminum. Was that due to the influence of COVID? I don’t quite remember, but yes, it ends up with a kind of chromatic monotone. Consciously, at least, I didn’t want the very colorful effects you often see with digital.

You’re a great cinephile. In your conversations with Makoto Shinozaki (Hon effroyable histoire du cinéma, Rouge Profond, 2008), you mention many fantastic or horror films, and memorable, spectacular scenes…

In The Pit and the Pendulum (1961) by Roger Corman, there’s that oversized torture machine, its blade swinging above a bound man. I was stunned by its scale, and the idea of designing something so massive just to wound and kill. I was struck as much by the characters as by Corman’s approach.

Which brings us back to the earlier question about what we show or don’t show: sometimes it’s important to present something never seen before, while still making it feel real. That’s very hard to do, not just because of budget, but because it takes great imagination. I try to create scenes like that, when I can. There’s one film I watch over and over, always amazed, moved, and captivated, even though it’s only 50 seconds long: Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory in Lyon. A crowd, men, dogs, suddenly pour out onto the screen - you can’t believe your eyes. It proves that from the very beginning, cinema could show people things they had never seen before. That’s one of its greatest strengths.

Interview conducted on April 8, 2025, in Paris. Our thanks to interpreter Léa Le Dimna.

« Influencer et suggérer» was originally published in Positif #772 in June 2025. Interview conducted by Nicolas Geneix and Hubert Niogret. Translation by Jhon Hernandez.