is a 2017 Japanese

romance Romance may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings ** Romantic orientation, the classification of the sex or gender with which a pers ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by

Naomi Kawase is a Japanese film director. She was also known as , with her former husband's surname. Many of her works have been documentaries, including ''Embracing'', about her search for the father who abandoned her as a child, and ''Katatsumori'', about ...

. It was selected to compete for the

Palme d'Or The (; ) is the highest prize awarded to the director of the Best Feature Film of the Official Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festiv ...

in the main competition section at the

2017 Cannes Film Festival The 70th Cannes Film Festival took place from 17 to 28 May 2017, in Cannes, France. Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar was the president of the jury for the main competition. Italian actress Monica Bellucci hosted the opening and closing cerem ...

. At Cannes it won the

Prize of the Ecumenical Jury The Prize of the Ecumenical Jury () is an independent film award for feature-length films shown at major international film festivals since 1973. The award was created by Christian film makers, film critics and other film professionals. The objec ...

Plot

Masako (Ayame Misaki) creates movie audio descriptions. Her passion and her commitment to her work leads her to create scripts full of colors and textures in order to make them as accessible as possible to blind audiences. She tests it on a group of 10 blind people. At one of the pre-premiere screenings, she meets Masaya (Masatoshi Nagase), a renowned photographer who gradually loses his sight and ability to practice his craft. Masaya's strong character makes him the only one to firmly criticize her scripts. He helps Masako see the coldness of her careful descriptions. Despite the differences that arise between them, both manage to create a strong relationship that allows them to explore a world previously invisible to their eyes. In the last scene of the film, the old man struggles to climb a small dune, at the top he stops facing the setting sun. This reflects the message transmitted by his impassive face without imposing a vision on the viewer.

Cast

Masatoshi Nagase is a Japanese actor and singer. He is best known in the West for his roles in Friðrik Þór Friðriksson's ''Cold Fever'' and Jim Jarmusch's ''Mystery Train (film), Mystery Train''. Nagase was described by Todd Brown of Twitch Film as "one of t ...

as Masaya Nakamori * Ayame Misaki as Misako Ozaki *

Noémie Nakai , is a French-Japanese actress, director and former model. Early life Noémie Nakai was born on December 2, 1990, in Tokyo, Japan. She has a French mother and a Japanese father. She took acting lessons when she was very young in France, and arri ...

* Chihiro Ohtsuka *

Kazuko Shirakawa (born September 30, 1947) is a Japanese actress who is best known for her appearances in Nikkatsu's '' Roman Porno'' films during the 1970s. She appeared in Nikkatsu's first film in the ''Roman Porno'' series, ''Apartment Wife'' (1971), and is c ...

Tatsuya Fuji is a Japanese actor. He was born in Beijing and raised in Yokohama. In 1962, Fuji joined Nikkatsu Company and began his acting career with small roles in Nikkatsu film. In 1968, Fuji married actress Izumi Ashikawa. He gained popularity throug ...

as Kitabayashi

Reception

The film received a 63% approval rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, based on 30 reviews with an average rating of 6.5/10. It also holds a weighted average rating of 52 out of 100 on

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, based on 5 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Clarence Tsui of ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...

'' said that "''Radiance'' remains mired in underwritten relationships that end up less emotionally engaging than they appear". Guy Lodge of ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' magazine called the film "pretty" and "sincere".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Radiance 2017 romantic drama films 2010s Japanese-language films Films directed by Naomi Kawase Films about blind people Films about photographers Japanese romantic drama films 2010s Japanese films Japanese-language romantic drama films