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‘A Pale View of Hills’ Review: The Supple Ambiguities of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Novel Stiffen and Seize Up in an Unsatisfying Adaptation
A British-Japanese writer probes her mother's past in Kei Ishikawa's 'A Pale View of Hills,' clumsily adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro's haunting novel.
Attractively and accessibly presented, this bilingual Japanese-British production aims squarely for crossover arthouse appeal, and with the Ishiguro imprimatur — the Nobel laureate takes an executive producer credit — should secure broader global distribution than any of Ishikawa’s previous work. Keiko is never directly seen on screen, though there may be an analog of sorts for her childhood self in the film’s 1950s-set section, where the young Etsuko — lonely and brusquely neglected by her workaholic husband Jiro (Kouhei Matsushita) — befriends single mother Sachiko (Fumi Nikaido, recently seen in FX’s “Shōgun” series) and her sullen, withdrawn pre-teen daughter Mariko. DP Piotr Niemyjski’s heightened depiction of midcentury Nagasaki — sometimes a postcard vision of serene pastels, sometimes luridly bathed in saturated sunset hues — suggests some embellishment of reality, but Ishikawa never finds a narratively satisfying way to present ambiguities that can shimmer more nebulously on the page, building to a reveal that feels overwrought and rug-pulling.
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