In the land of the rising sun, shared custody almost does not exist. In “A Missing Part”, which is released this Wednesday, December 4 at the cinema, Romain Duris plays a Frenchman deprived of seeing his daughter, who has been wandering in Tokyo for 9 years in the hope of finding her. A poignant film by Guillaume Senez. Meeting with the director.
Guillaume Senez: “You had to look in the right place and be fair”
In the land of the rising sun, shared custody does not exist. In “A Missing Part”, Romain Duris plays a Frenchman deprived of seeing his daughter, who has been wandering around Tokyo for 9 years in the hope of finding her. A poignant film by Guillaume Senez. Meeting with the director.
29.11.2024
After “Keeper” and “Our battles”, Guillaume Senez returns with a third feature film around the theme of parenthood. In “A Missing Part”, as in his previous film, it is Romain Duris who carries the story, but this is not due to chance. It was in fact when they were on tour in Japan that the actor made a joke to the director, says Guillaume Senez: “It’s true, we were in Tokyo and Romain, a big fan of Japan since always, told me said: ‘look where we are, it’s magnificent, we absolutely have to make a film here’”.
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How should you react if you find yourself deprived of your child overnight, in a country whose codes differ from ours, and you have the law against you? Between resignation, anger, hope, relentlessness, Romain Duris subtly plays on the range of everything one can experience in such a situation. Then, when his daughter Lily gets into his taxi, it is certainly a dream come true for this father, but the bond with his daughter does not exist, no longer exists… it will have to be created little by little . “A Missing Part” is a film that takes its time until it takes us by the guts, almost by surprise. He raises an issue without judging it and lets the viewer draw his conclusions. Intelligently conducted, tender and touching. Notre note: 10/10
Although the idea was launched lightly, it came to fruition little by little: “By coincidence, expats spoke to us about this problem of child kidnapping, of this shared custody system that is not respected. It touched us, overwhelmed us, and we said to ourselves that there was a beautiful film to be made,” he continues.
In Japan, after a separation, very often, the first parent who leaves with their children has sole custody of them, notes Guillaume Senez.
“Between 150,000 and 200,000 children are kidnapped there every year, it’s a real social phenomenon there. In the majority of cases, it is Japanese couples who are affected and this creates terrible pain. But if it is very ingrained among them, for us, the expats, it is even more complicated, because it is not at all in our culture. Not seeing your children again from one day to the next is a real ax to fall,” explains the Franco-Belgian.
However, the film does not pull any punches on the land of the rising sun.
Little by little over the course of the story, a bond will form between Jay (Romain Duris) and Lily (Mei Cirne-Masuki)
Romain Duris brilliantly embodies the role of a French expatriate in Japan, who has not seen his daughter for nine years.
A driver in Tokyo, Jay hopes that one day his daughter will get into his taxi… and the unexpected happens!
Director Guillaume Senez does not believe he has made a committed film, “but if it can help to make things happen, that’s good,” he says.
Little by little over the course of the story, a bond will form between Jay (Romain Duris) and Lily (Mei Cirne-Masuki)
Romain Duris brilliantly embodies the role of a French expatriate in Japan, who has not seen his daughter for nine years.
A driver in Tokyo, Jay hopes that one day his daughter will get into his taxi… and the unexpected happens!
Director Guillaume Senez does not believe he has made a committed film, “but if it can help to make things happen, that’s good,” he says.
On the contrary, even: we feel in the way of filming that the director deeply loves Japan and Tokyo, where the action takes place. “But of course I love Japan,” confides Guillaume Senez. For me, it was a country that I didn’t know. I learned this culture, I learned to work with technicians from there. We were very well received, very well supervised.”
He adds: “You had to look in the right place and be fair. And in that, we were supported. At all levels, we inquired, we had a lot of consultations with Japanese people on the set, in the script, in post-production, etc… to try to verify that we were not burdensome: these legal consultants, these police consultants, were there to bring us back to the facts, to what is happening, to show things as they exist.
He assures that his goal was not to make an engaging film, but to draw attention to an issue that personally upset him.
To prepare the scenario, the “A Missing Part” team spent a lot of time with several French fathers deprived of seeing their children. Secondly, a whole panel of people who were victims of this problem was approached.
“We drew on lots of little things, because we wanted to stay in fiction, we didn’t want to follow a real story. We wanted to nourish our dramaturgy ourselves, to bring our own empathy, the evolution of the character, his journey,” notes Guillaume Senez.
Having never managed to meet the “other party”, namely parents who left with their children, the director did not wish to tell a true story with a single point of view. Hence the idea of a fiction, inspired by real events. “We said to ourselves: ‘we’re going to bring what we know how to do best, namely trying to convey an emotion,’” he says.
Bet won.
Find the full interview with Guillaume Senez also on blue Zoom!
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