Archive of films Sweet Little Lies / Sweet Little Lies

Japan
2009, 117 min

Section: Another View
Year: 2010

This unostentatious melodrama devoid of extreme emotions introduces a marriage union that, despite its outwardly carefree nature, suffers from a lack of empathy and physical intimacy. The mutually aloof spouses enter into love affairs, yet they maintain their marriage with the help of lies since their relationship has an irreplaceable value for them both.

Synopsis

Japanese director Hitoshi Yazaki has earned international renown with his delicate movies about lonely girls and young women looking for love. Although his latest melodrama focuses on a married couple, the characters once again mirror the emotional dispossession of modern Japan. The young couple’s outwardly calm union is internally undermined by their aloofness towards each other. Despite sharing breakfast, dinner, a household and a bed, their relationship is devoid of sex and all other physical manifestations of affection – theirs is a relationship based more on the respect of roommates. With time they both enter into love affairs but they stay together, maintaining their marriage with the help of lies. Told in an unostentatious style, the melodrama avoids affected emotions, presenting instead an unobtrusive portrait of a relationship that is admittedly dysfunctional, but which simultaneously has an irreplaceable value for both wife and husband.

About the director

Hitoshi Yazaki (b. 1956, Kajikazawa, Japan) founded a film club (for shooting short movies) with Shunichi Nagasaki while studying screenwriting at university. In 1979 he and Nagasaki (a pioneer on the independent 8mm scene) founded their own production company, and in 1980 Yazaki completed his feature debut Afternoon Breezes (Kazetachi no gogo), which in Japan became a sensation of non-studio filmmaking, and even made it into foreign distribution. He achieved similar success with March Comes in Like a Lion (Sangatsu no raion, 1991), his first commercial feature. In the new millennium he shot the four-hour drama The Girl Who Picks Flowers and the Girl Who Kills Insects (Hana wo tsumu shôjo to mushi wo korosu shôjo, 2000) and adapted the manga by Kiriko Nananan entitled Strawberry Shortcakes (Sutoroberî shotokeikusu, 2006).

Contacts

Shochiku Co., Ltd.
4-1-1 Tsukiji, Togeki Bldg. 12th Floor, Chuo-Ku, 104 8422, Tokyo
Japan
Tel: +81 355 501 623
Fax: +81 355 501 654
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.shochikufilms.com

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About the film

Color, 35 mm
International premiere

Section:	Another View

Director:	Hitoshi Yazaki
Screenplay:	Kyoko Inukai
Dir. of Photography:	Isao Ishii
Music:	Takeshi Senoo
Editor:	Yoshiyuki Okuhara
Producer:	Dai Miyazaki, Junko Tanabe
Production:	Glory Group, Broadmedia Studios, Nichion, Pony Canyon
Cast:	Miki Nakatani, Nao Omori, Chizuru Ikewaki, Juichi Kobayashi
Contact:	Shochiku Co., Ltd.

Guests

Hitoshi Yazaki

Film Director, Film Director

Kyoko Inukai

Screenwriter