The live-action adaptation of Tatsuki Fujimoto’s wildly popular manga features remarkable performances from its young leads and is premiering in competition at the Venice Film Festival.
Japanese arthouse favorite Hirokazu Koreeda returns to his wheelhouse to marvelous effect with Look Back, an aching drama about growing up and making art, featuring a pair of stunning performances from child actors.
The film is the Palme d’Or winner’s 18th feature and second this year, following Sheep in the Box, a speculative drama about a grieving couple who take in an AI-powered android replica of their deceased son. That film was unusual for Koreeda both in its sci-fi subject matter and in the frosty reception it received from many Cannes critics. Look Back, which premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival on Monday, appears a far surer bet for admirers of the director’s signature gentle humanism.
The film adapts an acclaimed manga of the same name by artist Tatsuki Fujimoto, best known globally as the creator of Chainsaw Man. The story follows Fujino (played by 12-year-old first-time actress Furi Nanase), a vivacious grade-schooler whose gift at drawing comic strips has made her a minor celebrity at her small-town elementary school. Fujino’s artistic ambition is further inflamed when she sees the drawings of Kyomoto (Rokka Okada), a reclusive classmate who rarely leaves home but whose work has an almost adult-like sophistication. What begins as a fierce rivalry eventually blossoms into a devoted friendship and manga-making partnership — Fujino draws the characters, Kyomoto does backgrounds — as the story follows the two girls over 13 years as they come of age, get a first taste of professional publishing success, and experience a falling out that sends them down separate paths (midway through the film, actresses Natsuki Deguchi and Aju Makita step in to play the adult Fujino and Kyomoto, respectively).
