3.5/5 stars
Towards the end of Kei Ishikawa’s visually captivating new film A Pale View of Hills, Niki (Camilla Aiko) tells her mother, Etsuko (Yoh Yoshida), she shouldn’t feel guilty about leaving Japan for Britain after the second world war. “We all need to change,” she says.
For Etsuko, that comment rings very true: trapped by both the trauma of war and the tyranny of patriarchy, reinvention was perhaps Etsuko’s only option to attain a more rewarding life.
By amplifying the book’s much more muted social commentary – a move encouraged by Ishiguro himself, who helped develop the screenplay and also serves as the executive producer of the film – Ishikawa somehow shifts the focus away from the protagonist’s personal struggles.
He also waters down the intrigue which keeps Niki – and the audience – guessing about the truthfulness of Etsuko’s recollections of her past.