Summer garden: a filmmaker to (re) discover (critic)

A poignant and luminous account around the acceptance of death, signed by Shinji Sōmai, Japanese director who died in 2001 at 53, adored by Kore-Eda.

It is necessary to salute the survival distributor who undertook to make known to the French public the work of Shinji Somai, Japanese director who died in 2001 at 53 years old. A filmmaker adored by many of his Japanese peers (Kore-Eda, Hamaguchi …) but of which only one of his fifteen films (Le Teen Movie Typhoon Club) had experienced an outing in our rooms. Started with the masterful Movingstory of a divorce seen through the eyes of an 11 -year -old kid and then the Typhoon Clubthis trip through his work therefore continues with Summer gardenproduced in 1994.

This one features three children, one of whom comes back from a burial and, evoking with the other two experience, disseminates what he feels in the face of death: fascination and blue-tap. An exchange that pushes this trio to spy on an eccentric old man living in an isolated house that they foresee on the verge of spending from life to death. A children’s game born from a morbid fascination but which goes, for an unforgettable summer, see this trio becoming an inseparable quartet, breaking the barriers of a priori and generations.

Built in plans-sequence, its fluid staging offers a perfect setting for this narrative as playful as it is deep, whose extreme delicacy follows the point of view of childhood and its ability to distill marvelous in every small detail of everyday life. This results in an initiatory account of a luminous, poignant but never tearful poetry, around the acceptance of the death of these kids who will never forget this enchanted summer parenthesis.

By Shinji Somai. With Rétarô Mikuni, Awashima chikage, Akira Emoto … Duration 1h53. Release on June 4, 2025