All of a Sudden (Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2026)

[diamonds]

Ryusuke Hamaguchi is preparing to shoot All of a Sudden in Paris:

Hamaguchi, who is currently in Paris preparing for the movie, penned the script with Léa Le Dimna, loosely inspired by a collection of real-life exchanged letters published in the book “You and I – The Illness Suddenly Get Worse,” by Makiko Miyano and Maho Isono.

In the book […] a philosopher and an anthropologist are exchanging letters discussing their thoughts on chance and risk, and their relationship develops into something more personal when the philosopher’s health suddenly deteriorates.

“Death becomes a subject they discuss and exchange a lot about, and gradually, it becomes an encounter between two souls,” says Hamaguchi, who ultimately decided to transpose the story in France, and turn the epistolary relationship into a real one between two women, a Japanese theater director and French director of a nursing home.

It will star Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto.

[domino harvey]

First still. Efira will be speaking Japanese (!) and said elsewhere that the film will be three hours long

[Never Cursed]

Bought by, who else, Neon

[Never Cursed]

Beautiful Japanese poster for this. It will be coming out in Japan in June

[therewillbeblus]

All of a Sudden (Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2026)
Yes, it’s talky. Yes, it features intelligent characters exchanging abstract ideas. Have you not seen any other Hamaguchi films? People that complain about such things apparently don’t understand that this is a film about an intellectual crush (as is, in its own funny way, Liebniz): all these characters want is to stay up all night talking, exchanging ideas and honing their own intellect on the whetstone of another’s. If you’ve never experienced that kind of relationship: 1) I feel sorry for you; 2) I don’t know if you’ll ever understand this film. Of course, being a Ryusuke Hamaguchi film, it’s also about so much more: theatre and life, the sustaining of micro-communities, how to apply abstract notions to real world situations. Enchanting and uplifting while also being tough and formally rigorous.

It'll be difficult for any film to best this as my favorite of the year, outdoing any other Hamaguchi I've seen by a wide margin (and I loved his last three). There is such a powerfully sublime tone coinciding with pathos, and I suppose that resonates with its themes in demonstrating the vastness of ideas and feelings often by comparing opposite ends or contrasting concepts. I loved the final shot, recalling one of their first intellectual conversations on capitalism and nature, while also doubling for many other ideas, my preference being the coexistence of the corporeal and the spiritual

I related to this film in layers, but I must say that professionally-speaking this tops Short Term 12 as the most honest and realistic depiction of residential treatment I've seen, particularly through a systemic lens