Author: Yuri Kageyama
Associated Press
Naomi Kawase in Cannes, southern France, May 2022. She directed the official documentary of the Tokyo Olympics. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
TOKYO (AP) — Naomi Kawase, director of the official film for the Tokyo Olympics, admits she was initially taken aback by her assignment. It was in late 2018 and she got a commission from the International Olympic Committee.
The job has never been easier.
Japan’s public opinion is divided over hosting the Games, and the costs are mounting, after the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the Games for a year. Tokyo is considered the most expensive Olympics on record.
The resignation of Yoshiro Mori, the head of the Olympic organising committee, sparked a scandal just months before the Games. The disgruntled artist responsible for designing the opening and closing ceremonies also resigned.
It wasn’t until Kawase decided to focus on the so-called athletes on the A side, and most of the turbulence on the B side, that she figured out what to do with all the material.
Each two-hour segment is released as a separate film – titled “Tokyo 2020 Official Film Side A” and “Tokyo 2020 Official Film Side B”.
“I never wavered,” she said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “Suddenly there was a huge gulf, the world was in a state of unease, and people were forced to kill time without easy answers.”
She said the A-side and B-side, which recently hit theaters in Japan, were like “twins.” When they saw it together, they recounted what she called the “human condition” exposed by the Olympics.
She said talks are underway on global streaming, but no decisions have been made.
Kawase recently returned from the Cannes Film Festival, where the A-side appeared.
Kawase won the Caméra d’Or at the 1997 Film Festival. She was a competition judge at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2007, she won the Grand Prix at the event.
Sifting through some 5,000 hours of footage is a challenge Kawase says she has never tackled before — like solving a math puzzle.
A driving theme is information on gender inequality.
Japan, which has the world’s third-largest economy, consistently ranks low in gender gap studies, with women underrepresented on boards and political leadership.
Kawase said she had suffered personally as a female director in Japan.
Side A shows – among other things – an Olympian competing after giving birth.
Side B shows a horrific image of the 2011 tsunami in northeastern Japan. Some Olympic events, such as the torch relay, are held there to highlight the redevelopment of the area.
Side B also depicts some humble players, such as the man in charge of tidying up the grounds at Tokyo’s National Stadium, or the chef in charge of feeding the Olympic Village athletes.
Dramatically highlighting the sexist theme is Sen, whose face is often featured in close-ups.
Former Prime Minister Sen Yan was forced to resign as Olympic Organizing Committee chair after she made too many off-the-cuffs about women, leading to lengthy speeches at the meeting.
“If you’re so close to a face, when you see through what they’re really thinking, there’s a moment in people’s expressions, even the tiniest movement of their eyes,” Kawase said.
Mori was replaced by a woman, politician and former Olympic bronze medalist Seiko Hashimoto. Following Sen’s resignation, other women joined the organizing committee leadership.
They appear in the movie.
“It is now clear that many aspects of Japanese society need to change,” Kawase said. “When society operates as a larger system, what’s really precious is overlooked and what happens becomes so superficial.”
