The latest film from Hamaguchi Ryusuke, at the forefront of contemporary Japanese cinema, won Best Actress at the 79th Cannes Film Festival. It is also Hamaguchi’s first international co-production, made with a French cast and crew. Based on When Life Suddenly Takes a Turn: Twenty Letters Between a Philosopher with Terminal Cancer and a Medical Anthropologist, a collection of letters exchanged between Japanese philosopher Miyano Makiko and anthropologist Isono Maho as one faced impending death, the film transforms the nonfiction language of ‘letters’ into the fictional form of ‘cinema.’ Marie-Lou, who runs a nursing home outside Paris, tries to introduce a new care philosophy called ‘Humanitude,’ but faces practical obstacles. Mari, a Japanese theater director she meets by chance, quickly grows close to Marie-Lou and confides in her about her cancer. They become friends, sharing their struggles. How can we stand in solidarity with and truly understand others? This question, always central to Hamaguchi’s work, expands in All of a Sudden beyond language and nationality. In particular, the dialogue shifting between French and Japanese becomes, through Hamaguchi’s distinctive direction, an extraordinarily creative interplay of sound, language, and music. (GOO Hyeong Jun)