All of a Sudden

Not many filmmakers are making movies like Ryusuke Hamaguchi right now. The Japanese writer-director has managed to bring wild appeal to his particular brand of meditative, introspective character dramas. Drive My Car hit levels of global discussion that few probably saw coming (one of two exceptional features he released that year, the other being his anthology Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy) and its Academy Award for Best International Feature only further solidified an already beloved name in the international film scene.

His follow-up was Evil Does Not Exist in 2023; a pricklier film, and less accessible – but for my money, an even better movie than the previous ones mentioned. It’s a thing to behold, then, that his latest picture All of a Sudden is the greatest of the bunch – and miraculous that, despite its over 3-hour runtime, it feels like Hamaguchi at his most grounded.

Beginning in France and remaining there for the majority, we follow the manager of a care home (Marie-Lou, played by Virginie Efira) who has been methodically implementing methods of Humanitude care, causing tensions amongst the nurses who believe that these new techniques for a personal approach are unrealistic, jeopardising the practical workings of the facility. When this conflict reaches its most unpleasant state, it’s then that our protagonist happens to fall into the world of Mari (Tao Okamoto) – a playwright with a terminal illness. They form a significant connection. They struggle to articulate what it is they each represent for one another, but they embark on seeing the world through one another’s eyes.

Let’s talk about this runtime that will have everyone too scared to take a chance on this wonderful movie. Rarely has a film clocking in at 3 hours and 17 minutes (just 18 minutes longer than Drive My Car, by the way) ever flown by faster. Hamaguchi is deeply aware of a film’s rhythms; how to make scenes breathe and flow into one another, breaking or adhering to the illusion of time.

The film is a lot of dialogue and a couple of beautiful locations. There are only a few characters, all of which are completely fleshed out. Not in such a way, though, wherein the film feels the need to explain every facet of a character’s life; we get insights into their pasts and how their experiences inform their respective philosophies on how to live within a broken world. But it always feels like we’re learning about each of the two characters at the same time as the other – prying slightly further, using a gentle question or response to connect that little bit deeper.

On an aesthetic level, Hamaguchi is continuing to advance the form by combining digital recording methods with an approach of subtlety and restraint. His images, especially in this piece, speak for themselves in many ways – told mostly in wide shots, but occasionally (and effectively) stripping a sequence’s essence down to a face or a body part. Or, for the opposite effect, a landscape that contextualises a feeling via the natural or industrial world.

It ticks all the boxes. Sad and complicated people with nice faces, talking for a long time about moral quandaries, love and regrets (obviously my kind of movie). And not since Robert Altman’s Brewster McCloud (1970) has bird poo served as such an effective storytelling device.