After “Keeper” and “Our battles”, Franco-Belgian director Guillaume Senez continues to explore parenthood with one of his favorite actors. In “A Missing Part” released on December 4, Romain Duris plays a father ready to do anything to find his daughter, in a Japan far from clichés.
Jérôme travels the streets of Tokyo every day at the wheel of his taxi, looking for his daughter Lily, kidnapped by her Japanese mother during their separation nine years ago. While hope no longer seems possible, and Jérôme is preparing to return to France, Lily gets into her taxi.
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The idea for this third feature film came about when Guillaume Senez and Romain Duris were promoting “Our Battles” in Japan. The Franco-Belgian director then discovered that Japanese law awards custody of the child and parental authority to a single parent in the event of separation (editor’s note: a new law on shared custody should come into force in 2026). Father of three children himself and feeling very touched by this issue, Guillaume Senez decides that this will be the theme of his next film.
A Japan far from clichés
To play this desperate father, who became a taxi driver out of spite, Romain Duris first learned his lines phonetically in Japanese. On site, during filming, he does his shopping, goes to restaurants, chats with the technical team. “This allowed him to do little bits of sentences in improvisation, things that were not planned,” confides Guillaume Senez in 12h45 of November 28.
In “A Missing Part”, Japan is seen through the eyes of Jérôme who has lived there for fifteen years. By adopting the perspective of a long-time expatriate, clichés are swept away. “We removed everything that could be a little exotic, everything that was an image of Epinal,” continues Guillaume Senez. “So no Mount Fuji, no little cat with its paw, and no karaoke.”
A faithful director
During their previous film, Romain Duris and Guillaume Senez promised to work together again. This is now done with “A Missing Part”. For the director, directing actors requires mutual trust: “When I want to work with a new actor, I look at his or her CV and I see if he or she has worked several times with the same one or the same one. filmmaker,” he says.
>> To see, the interview with Guillaume Senez in the 12:45 p.m.:
“It’s a very important indicator for me because I say to myself: ‘well, there is a loyalty, there is a trust, there is something humanly,’” he continues. A maxim that also applies to young actors and the technical team: “If they are people with whom I can go to a restaurant and remake the world until 2 a.m., a priori, we will get along well “, declares Guillaume Senez, smiling.
Comments collected by Julie Evard
Web adaptation: Sarah Clément
“A missing part” by Guillaume Senez, with Romain Duris, Judith Chemla, Mei Cirne-Masuki. To be seen in French-speaking cinemas since December 4, 2024.
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