Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF)was established in 1985, and celebrates its 18th anniversary this year. It runs from October ééto 30.
As one of the largest international film festivals in the world, TIFF has left a large footprint in the Japanese film industry and culture in general.
On the third day of TIFF director Hans Canosa, accompanied by actor Aaron Eckhart, presented the film Conversations with Other Women (in competition at Tokyo Film Festival) and both artists answered questions at a press conference, as well as two teach-ins with audiences after two screenings at Roppongi Hills.

The work is the first foray into filmmaking for the celebrated theater director Canosa and has garnered a lot of attention for its innovative approach. The story of former lovers meeting after a considerable period of time and rekindling their romance is told entirely in split-screen, or “dual frame” as the filmmaker has called it. Starring Helena Bonham Carter and Eckhart, the film shows the jockeying, parrying, seduction and accompanying complex emotions of the two characters. The dual frame allows the audience to experience both characters’ feelings simultaneously.

Director Canosa addressed this point and expanded it: “I wanted this film to reflect both a man’s point of view and a woman’s point of view and the audience can choose which way to experience it”. While other films have used split or multiple screens (Time Code jumps to mind) it is not hyperbole to say the present work significantly expands the vocabulary of film language, showing both characters’ emotion and expression, as well as the other characters reactions, at the same time. Eckhart presented an actor’s take on this process explaining, “shooting with two cameras simultaneously allowed me to lose myself in the scene…when the two people are on camera at all times there is much more electricity between the actors.” The narrative slowly establishes a past between two principals but does not spell everything out. Canosa elucidated “the story is ambiguous and I mean it to be that way. I mean for there to be many interpretations.” This sly storytelling, in which the director intercuts younger actors depicting the two characters in a previous era, allows the viewer to create many possible scenarios. Canosa added “one of the projects for the whole movie is that love and time and reality are all uncertain…” The director explained the original impetus to make the film in this manner: “I was not allowed to watch movies when I was growing so I didn’t see a film until I was 17. That night, after I saw it, I had a nightmare that I thought when characters were not on screen they were dying. The only way they could live was when they were on screen. In the same dream I imagined another screen in the back of the theater. For many years I thought about making a movie with a front and back screen and making it a museum installation. Then I thought if I brought them both together it might be something that somebody will let me do.”

Conversations with Other Women is remarkably successful in placing the audience in the middle of the story. The director summed it up thusly, “the split screen gave me many storytelling tools but I think the story is a very universal one that everyone experiences. Audiences in USA and Japan have both said ‘I forget about the split screen and am just watching the two characters’. That was my goal.”

by Rob Schwartz