As he prepares to sell his house to return to France, Jérôme sees, one morning, a teenage girl who he thinks is his daughter get into his taxi. But Lily (Mei Cirne-Masuki) doesn’t recognize him…
A very personal theme
The question of paternity is at the center of Guillaume Senez’s cinema. In his first film Keeper in 2015, the Franco-Belgian filmmaker featured a 16-year-old kid convincing his pregnant girlfriend to keep their child. Three years later, in Our battlesRomain Duris played a trade unionist torn between his struggles at work and at home, where he found himself alone with his two children following the departure of his wife.
Presented in Toronto, A missing part explores this very personal theme, which addresses a little-known issue, by featuring an expatriate fighting to obtain visitation rights for his daughter, in a country where joint custody will not apply before 2026. According to Le Monde, in May 2024not recognized by the Japanese civil code, child abductions affect each year some 150,000 young Japanese (or one in six minors!), who lose all contact with one of their parents, whether Japanese or foreign. .
“Our battles”, an x-ray of a world of work in full transformation
Reuniting with Romain Duris — always just as right in the role of this courageous father — Guillaume Senez places his new film in a different environment, in a radically different culture. In Our battlesthe 46-year-old filmmaker showed how the Uberization of the world of work impacted our lives. The aim here is to show how the socio-cultural context in which his hero evolves prevents him from seeing his child. With, as a subtext, this question of racism in Japanese society towards gaijinsforeigners…
Gaijins in Japan
Jérôme may speak Japanese perfectly and master all the cultural codes of his host country, but he is not Japanese. And the authorities are hardly inclined to feel sorry for the fate of these foreign parents who have been separated from their child…
“Keeper”: Thrilling and delicate film
Composing his film as a succession of moments of life in Tokyo – which he films with naturalness, without falling into exoticism – Senez slips a little in setting up the story, but manages to hit the right note when he It’s about staging fleeting encounters, in a taxi, between a father and a daughter. A man reduced to the status of driver, condemned to look at his child in a rear-view mirror, without daring to admit who he is to her…
A missing part Drama Realization Guillaume Senez Scenario Jean Denizot and Guillaume Senez Musique Olivier Marguerite Montage Julie Brenta With Romain Duris, Mei Cirne-Masuki, Judith Chemla, Yumi Narita… Duration 1h38
