Filmmaker Mayu Nakamura: ‘Why can't a woman be sexy and a mother at the same time?’
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Filmmaker Mayu Nakamura lived in London and New York, experiences she credits as helping define her image of Japan. | SATOKO KAWASAKI
BY KAORI SHOJI
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
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Mar 28, 2022
Filmmaker Mayu Nakamura is a rarity in Japan’s film industry — completely self-made and fiercely independent. In 2006, she made her debut with “The Summer of Stickleback” starring Kengo Kora. She has a number of acclaimed documentaries under her belt, including “Alone in Fukushima” and “Watch Out For the Patriot! — Kunio Suzuki,” about the titular activist and politician. Her latest work is “Intimate Stranger,” a story about grief and isolation in pandemic-stricken Tokyo.
1. What did you learn from going to boarding school in London at 16? I learned early that when you change locations, you can change your identity.
2. Did you feel a need to change your identity? During elementary school, I lived in Kyoto and suffered intense bullying. Kyoto is heavily conservative and does not take kindly to outsiders. I was staying with my grandparents, but since I was from Tokyo I couldn’t speak the dialect. Therefore I was a stranger, which made me a target.
3. Why did you end up in Kyoto? My father was a poet and my mother was a journalist. They were both wrapped up in work so they sent me to Kyoto. During my childhood, I saw my parents twice a year: during the new year and Bon holidays. Those years made me very strong. Nothing in my life since has matched what I suffered in Kyoto.
4. Were you able to return to Tokyo? Yes. In junior high I moved back in with my parents and started learning English. I fell in love with (filmmaker) Derek Jarman and British rock. My parents sent me to summer programs in the U.S. and the U.K., and pretty soon I could speak the language. I wanted to move to either the U.S. or the U.K.
5. What made you choose London? I felt more comfortable there than in the U.S. I would be on my own, so I needed to go to boarding school. I chose London because I wanted to study English literature.
6. How did that work out for you? I was accepted into the University of London but hit a wall. From the beginning, I was different since I was one of the few non-native speakers in the English department. The British are not kind about people wanting to study their literature. They couldn’t understand why I would want to read Shakespeare.
7. Did you have any friends? My friends were eccentric British kids or gay people. My best friends were all gay men and I spent my youth going to gay bars.
8. When did you make your first film? When I was 18, I made my first film on a Super 8. In university, I belonged to the film society. The alumni would drop in and talk about their projects. Christopher Nolan was a member and I remember, at the time, he was on the dole and struggling to make indie films. Then, suddenly, he became a big star.
9. What made you leave London for New York? I thought that people (there) wouldn’t look down on me. I have a fierce competitive streak as a result of my years in Kyoto. I hate to lose or give up. After London, I applied and got into Columbia University. Jim Jarmusch was in the same department, but I transferred to New York University. There I wrote a script called “The Summer of Stickleback” in 2006.
10. What was the inspiration for your latest film, “Intimate Stranger”? I was struck by something in the news, about a woman in Texas who was grieving for her (dead) son, found a boy who resembled him, and took him into her home. I did some research and learned that when a father loses a child he often can’t stand the sight of other children.
11. How do mothers react? Women are so nurturing that they can’t help extending their love to other kids. Women have this desire to nurture and thus a willingness to find a surrogate in order to fill a void.
12. How did this information affect your film? At first, the boy was the main character. As I worked on it, though, it became a woman’s story.
13. Why did you include “ore ore” scams (in which the scammer calls an elderly person and pretends to be their child or grandchild) in the film? They intrigue me because, though scams happen all over the world, this particular brand of scamming seems unique to Japan.
14. Why is that? The mother-son relationship is so strong in Japan, almost to the point of obsession. It’s very different from the mother-daughter relationship. It’s hard for Westerners to imagine, but in Japan mothers give their adult sons money all the time. I think this has to do with how women are viewed by society.
15. How are women viewed by Japanese society? Women are so pressured to get married, and once they do they lose their identity. The husbands no longer see them as women, and then they become somebody’s mom. I always found it horrifying that when Japanese mothers pick up their kids from kindergarten, they’re referred to as “so-and-so’s mama.” It’s like when motherhood kicks in you lose your name, your identity, your self-worth.
16. At the same time, isn’t child abuse, particularly by mothers, on the rise in Japan? Yes, actually, I wanted to portray the boy in the story as having been neglected by his birth mother. I think that these scams tend to be carried out by kids who had been abused or neglected and had never known what it’s like to have a mother worry about them so much.
17. How are women treated by Japanese filmmakers? I find many Japanese films’ portrayal of women to be very old-fashioned, even by young directors. The central couple tend to consist of young women paired with older men. It’s very hard to make films where the main female character is over 30.
18. Is that why you have an older female character in “Intimate Stranger”? Yes, and I had such problems raising money for this film. The investors are mostly men, and they complained that it’s disgusting to have an older woman and a younger man in a semi-erotic relationship. I was asked to remove it from the script but I refused. I’m sure they wouldn’t complain if the situation were reversed.
19. Your lead is played by Asuka Kurosawa, what is she like? She’s very talented and very sexy, but in TV dramas she’s always the good housewife or the good mother. Again, there are just no kick-ass roles for older women out there, and no movies that older female audiences can enjoy. Why can’t a woman be sexy and a mother at the same time?
20. Besides Kurosawa, who is your ideal actress? I’ve always wanted to portray a mature, sensual woman whom audiences can relate to and enjoy watching. I don’t know why we don’t have a Japanese Gena Rowlands or an Isabelle Huppert or Juliette Binoche. Unfortunately, Japan has a long way to go.
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