In his first film shot outside of his home country, acclaimed Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa takes his penchant for ghost stories to the outskirts of Paris.
Down-on-his-luck Jean happens upon a job as an assistant to reclusive photographer Stéphane, who lives and works in a run-down mansion with his adult daughter, Marie. Suffering from grief for his dead wife, Stéphane has obsessively turned to the art of the daguerreotype—an early form of photography—and sadistically asks his daughter Marie to pose, sometimes for hours, for ghostly life-size impressions that remind him of his wife. Marie and Jean are drawn to each other as outsiders unable to escape their own seclusion and the gloom emanating from Stéphane.
Kurosawa builds a palpable atmosphere, buried in memories and anxieties, with a touch of the Victorian.
Director's Biography
Beginning his career in the 1980s working in straight to video productions, Kiyoshi Kurosawa achieved international renown with his feature, Cure, from 1997. Since then, he has been regarded as one of the greatest of Japanese filmmakers, carving out a brilliant career in moody, clever horror and dramas.
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