Radiance (2017)
Review of Radiance / 光 (2017), directed by Naomi Kawase
I remember before watching this for the first time that Radiance was one of the movies that I had wanted to watch for a long time. The first time I had heard about it was when it was showing at Cannes Film Festival and I was just a normal high schooler making lists of all the movies I wanted to one day see.
I’d never been to New York or Los Angeles, and I hoped one day I’d be able to see cool movies that were from other countries on a screen. I did end up living that dream when I lived in New York, which truly was a blessing. But Radiance I’d never been able to see because it came out when I was in high school. It came to MUBI in December 2021 and I watched it as soon as I saw it on the list. Was it worth it? Let’s begin the review and find out.
A famous photographer slowly going blind finds solace in an audio translator.
Our main character in Radiance is Masako, who makes audio translations for movies. These are added on top of the movies as they play so that blind people can enjoy movies just like everyone else. Masako is very passionate about this, despite not being blind herself, and it shows in her scripts.
We get glimpses of the process of what it takes to make these kinds of audio descriptions, and the sheer amount of editing and revising before revealing it to a test group. When it’s finally time to show it to a group, she meets someone special in it: Masaya.
Masaya is a famous Japanese photographer who is slowly losing his vision. Because of this, there’s a lot of pent up rage and sadness in his character’s core being. He can no longer do the craft that he loves and so he begins to lose all motivation to keep staying alive. When Masako meets him, he’s basically a shell who misses what he once had.
And so when the audio script is revealed to the test members, he’s the only one to critique it and say negative things. Naturally, Masako finds herself gravitating to him because while she does this job, she can never truly understand what it’s like to lose your vision.
There’s the movie inside of a movie scenario going on here, as we simultaneously watch Masako and Masaya’s story, but we also watch the actual film that she’s working on. It’s about a man struggling to get around and climb up a sand dune, which is very metaphorical for both of these characters. They’re unable to get past the difficulties that they’re facing, so thus begins the romance element of this piece.
I think it wouldn’t bother me as much if they’re similarly aged, but they’re not. He’s older and it reminds me of the dynamic that older creative men tend to have when they get together with young pretty girls. This guy can’t see, but the casting was intentional here. They’re both conventionally attractive, which takes away from some aspects of the story there.
The movie does offer interesting insights and empathy for what it means to be blind. We see this in Masaya’s struggle and how he slowly comes to terms with the fact that he’s now living a new life and can’t go back to the old one. Masako represents the viewer in this way, as she is the one to slowly come to terms with what it means to live like this on the screen.
However, I think the romance part of this movie could’ve been scrapped completely. I know I hate romance in general, but it feels unnecessary in a movie like this.
I like the fact the movie tries to tackle the concept of the savior—Masako does all of these audio descriptions without truly understand the gravity of what they mean. It’s because of her relationship with Masaya that she truly begins to get it, so she becomes less of a savior and more of a helper.
I’ve never seen a Kawase film before, so I can’t judge if this is consistent, but her style is very unique. There were some shots that are particularly beautiful, and I think that enhances the effect that if our vision was gone, we’d miss out on these really haunting and beautiful images. My concluding thoughts are I guess that I hope the audio descriptions for this film were good or it’d really seem like festival fodder.
Overall Thoughts
I think that this movie could’ve been better. After all these years of waiting for it, I don’t think it lived up to my expectations. Sure it was well-shot and the cinematography was good, as well as the messaging about those with disabilities, but the plot lacks a particular intensity to drive it forward and home with the viewer.
The characters feel disconnected and flat, like something out of a cartoon book, and I don’t think they’re characterized enough outside of the fact that they’re blind and an audio translator. I wanted to see more depth to this movie, but, unfortunately, it did not deliver.
