Hamaguchi’s career-long fascination with the transformational potential of language, for both cinema and self, finds its fullest expression to date in his celebrated fable of a grief-stricken theatrical director seeking solace and new direction by accepting an invitation to cast and direct a performance of Uncle Vanya with a multilingual troupe. Through the intense rehearsal sessions he invents and demands of his actors, asking them to tirelessly memorize Chekhov’s play, the director makes clear the larger design of Hamaguchi’s film: revealing language as a means to achieve a kind of pure performative selfhood. Each actor is thus allowed to perform their lines in their own native language—be it Japanese, Tagalog, Mandarin, Korean or, almost improbably, Korean sign-language—while remaining still understood by their fellow thespians thanks to the collectively memorized script. Here rehearsal and performance thus become a means to transcend the limits of language and relationships so painfully felt by the director still processing his wife’s sudden death (and discovered infidelity) while also searching for human connection and community through his work and craft.

If unclaimed tickets remain at screening start times, we will allow rush line admission on a first-come-first-served basis. Please arrive early.