After recounting the parenthood of a very young couple in Keeper in 2015, then that of a single father in Our battles in 2018, Belgian director Guillaume Senez once again addresses this question through the story of a father who moves to Tokyo to find his daughter Lily, whom he has not seen for almost ten years. A missing part releases in theaters on November 13, 2024.
Jérôme, “Jay”, in his forties, taxi driver in Tokyo, is preparing to return to France after searching in vain for his daughter Lily for almost ten years. He has to sign the sale of his house when suddenly, a young girl who looks a lot like his daughter enters his taxi, one leg in a cast.
Troubled, he discovered a few days later that his intuition was right. It is indeed Lily, 12 years old, whom he has not seen since his separation from his Japanese mother, nine years earlier. Not wanting to rush things, Jay arranges to replace the driver who usually takes Lily by taxi to school and takes advantage of the trips to get closer to her.
With this third feature film, Guillaume Senez addresses the subject of Japan’s “stolen children”, which the writer Olivier Adam had already fictionalized in his novel Everything can be forgottenpublished in 2021 by Flammarion editions. What is it about? In this country, until very recently, joint custody was not a legal option. Custody goes to whoever gets the children first. This legislation encourages many separated or divorced parents to remove their children. According to the associations, 150,000 minors are thus “abducted” each year. The phenomenon affects Japanese parents, and is even more complicated when one of the parents is foreign. Since then, the law has changed in Japan, and shared custody is now possible.
Guillaume Senez tells franceinfo that he discovered this phenomenon with Romain Duris, while discussing with expatriates during the presentation in Japan of his previous film, Our battles. “It touched us. We were moved by these stories. And there was a kind of evidence, almost a kind of continuity in relation to Our battles“remembers Guillaume Senez, who was looking for a subject for a new film project with Romain Duris.
This current subject allows him to explore his theme, parenthood, which he has addressed since his beginnings. A missing part, almost an inverted mirror of the film Our battlesan overflow in one, a “missing part” in the other. The movie Our battles told the daily life of a single father overwhelmed by daily management. A missing part tells of the void left by the absence of a child.
Through this story, it is also that of a Frenchman in a foreign land that is told. “We could have filmed a character who comes from the Central African Republic or Eastern countries and who emigrates to France, who tries to integrate, to become more French than the French, but who still ends up getting expelled. But We’ve already seen a lot of films like that. I said to myself, let’s show a Frenchman who is a migrant, and let’s show that it’s complicated too.”
We find sobriety in the Belgian director’s staging, the city of Tokyo filmed in the background, in movement, through the windows of Jay’s taxi. We also find his effective way of directing his actors. Romain Duris, like a fish in water in the streets of Tokyo, releasing his Japanese with a disarming naturalness, touches us with the sensitive interpretation of this father overwhelmed by emotions that he must hold back in order not to let his chances slip away. reunion with his daughter.
If the film remains focused on the main character, the director completes the picture of this social phenomenon with the stories of the various secondary characters. Like the Japanese father on the verge of suicide, or Jessica, played by a surprising Judith Chemla, her parents recently deprived of their children, make us understand Jay’s first years of anger and despair.
With A missing partGuillaume Senez nourishes a very personal work, centered on intimate stories around the question of family, inscribed in a broader painting of society and the world. To be continued.
Genre : Drama
Director: Guillaume Senez
Actors: Romain Duris, Judith Chemla, Mei Cirne-Masuki
Pays : Belgium, France, Japan
Duration : 1h38
Sortie : November 13, 2024
Distributer : Top and Short
Synopsis : Every day, Jay travels around Tokyo in his taxi looking for his daughter, Lily. Separated for nine years, he was never able to obtain custody. Just as he has stopped hoping to see her again and is preparing to return to France, Lily gets into his taxi…
