Japan 2021 Naomi Kawase write up

Naomi Kawase: Sky, Wind, Fire, Water, Earth + Birth/Mother

Kya ka ra ba a + Tarachime

Astonishing. Colours.

What I've realised in assessing this against my own work its it's absolute realism.

Perhaps I'm afraid of realism.

She mixes documentary footage of family members... herself filming herself.... nature. She is present and yet, she is not over exposed, it is intimate yet universal. 

Combining nostalgic home movies and handheld Super 8mm footage of nature, Kawase weaves together an achingly beautiful search for identity and the true meaning of family. 

Remembering my trip to the BFI and seeing these films  2001, 2006) are two later works from her body of lyrical, first-person Super8 films both cite and reconfigure her earlier, more tender attempts at confronting the pain around her unconventional upbringing. 

Sky, Wind, Fire, Water, Earth (2001) Kawase forces herself to confront her reaction to the death of the father she barely knew

In Birth/Mother (2006), as the filmmaker prepares to give birth, she asks difficult questions of the ailing great-aunt who raised her.