If there is one thing that unites Naomi Kawase's films, it is an easy likeability. And yet despite that fact – actually because of it – the Japanese director has had a distinctly uneasy relationship with critics.
Last year, her film An (Sweet Bean) – her fifth to be shown in competition in Cannes – was summarily dismissed as "too sucrose" and "insipid". Which was a little bit clever, because it was about cooking: an elderly woman inveigles herself into a pancake stall on the street in order to share her traditional bean paste.
![Radiance, which screens at MIFF, was directed by Naomi Kawase.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170802183403im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/x/m/8/t/r/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gxm3fi.png/1501481165275.jpg)
This year, responses to Hikari (Radiance) ranged from the similarly dismissive to the rapturous. Again, it is a quiet subject from an overlooked corner: what it means to lose one's sight, played out between a spirited young woman Misako (Ayame Misaki) who writes audio descriptions for classic movies and a photographer Nakamori (Masatoshi Nagase), who is resentfully serving on the committee of visually impaired people that discusses and guides her work. He can still see a little light, but he knows that is fading.
At the dismissive end, the critics' response was simultaneously "unwritten" and "pompous", with "much less substance than its gleaming sheen suggests". Rapture from a weblogger, meanwhile: "a beautiful film, gentle in approach but also impactful; a film that lingers in the memory long after the credits roll".
![Ayame Misaki and Masatoshi Nagase star in Radiance.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170802183403im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/x/m/8/t/k/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gxm3fi.png/1501481165275.jpg)
Kawase has often been one of the only women in competition at film festivals; I wonder if the fury of resistance to her films reflects that. Not because she is a woman, but because her delicate films feel so distinctly feminine.
Radiance, as the name hints, is about the cinema; Kawase says she wanted to convey her love for the medium after it had been paradoxically renewed by working with visually impaired people to make her own audio kit for Sweet Bean. "They could express things they see very beautifully," she says. "The way they capture things and feel things was very deep. Those who can see, as we can, might think it would be limiting but I was given great strength just by working with them."
Many of the comments they make in meetings with Misako – about wanting to be in the world of the film, about not wanting too much description so they have room to imagine the film themselves – came directly from her consultants. "Those words were not in the screenplay. I hope people who can see hear that voice. To feel a piece of cinema: I think that would be great. You don't have to see the screen. The world is bigger than the screen, you should be able to see that and feel that."
Kawase, 48, is noted for her films' lush sheen, but in this film the sound design – which includes an almost constant accompaniment on piano – often overwhelms the visuals. That was deliberate. "It's not a film just about what is visible, for sure," she says. "Of course film is a visual art, but I hope it is also an opportunity to really think what cinema is about."
![Some critics described Radiance as beautiful while others said pompous.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170802183403im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/x/m/8/t/o/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gxm3fi.png/1501481165275.jpg)
Most of all, she says, she wanted the film to share her love of the medium "to anyone in the world who has ever seen a film". She echoes a sentiment of one of her characters: that cinema is about hope.
In the film, Nakamori, the famous photographer, always carries his old-fashioned Rolleiflex camera, notable for the fact that it is held at waist level while the photographer looks down into the viewfinder. A friend and rival takes advantage of his poor vision to steal it from him, partly out of jealousy of his talent and partly because he can't bear seeing him carry it around any more. Woven into this story is that of Misako and her mother, who is living with Alzheimer's. This was a way for Kawase to describe her own situation, right down to dressing the character in her own step-mother's clothes.
For Nakamori, losing his sight "is probably a bigger suffering than losing his life" she says.
"I met people who would talk about that, sometimes in tears, even though it was many years ago. How frustrated they were. Why me? And yet they were very supportive of me telling this story. We all have sufferings, but when you encounter those moments, what kinds of radiance are you going to find? I think I am also trying to talk about that."
Radiance is screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival Friday August 4, 11am, and Sunday August 13, 6.45pm, at the Forum. The Age is a festival partner.