Across the past 15 years, Koji Fukada has steadily become one of the most celebrated independent filmmakers working in Japan. Many of his films are characterised by a family unit’s illusion of stability being completely overturned by one major event, which he has explored through very different tonal registers: his second feature, Hospitalité (2010), is largely played for laughs, while Harmonium (2016), perhaps his most internationally renowned film, takes a haunting detour into thriller territory.

Fukada’s latest feature as writer-director, Love Life, operates somewhere between the two extremes of those earlier films. While the plot-instigating tragedy is truly horrific, its melodrama narrative unfolds at a gentle pace, with plenty of moments of tension-breaking levity.

Directly inspired by ‘Love Life’, a song by singer and composer Akiko Yano, the film follows Taeko (Fumino Kimura) and her husband, Jiro (Kento Nagayama), who live with her young son, Keita (Tetta Shimada). When an accident occurs at a birthday party, the superficially peaceful existence the couple had built comes to an abrupt end, something only exacerbated by the reemergence of Taeko’s Korean ex-partner and Keita’s father, Park (Atom Sunada).

Deaf and now homeless, Park, who had suddenly disappeared many years ago, becomes the focus of Taeko’s attention and emotional attachment, instead of the man she has since married.

Read the full interview on bfi.org.uk