As charmingly impressionist in style as its title “Renoir” suggests, writer/director Chie Hayakawa interprets the world through eleven-year-old Fuki’s eyes. A rambunctious, bright girl, Fuki perceptively watches her mother Utako Okita wrestling with a busy, stressed life. That results primarily from the imminent death of husband Keiji, Fuki’s father, ill with terminal cancer. With Utako preoccupied with Keiji and preparations for his funeral, Fuki enjoys the time and has the energy to explore her 1987 Tokyo community at leisure with schoolmates, a neighbor, her mother’s friend, and others with whom she comes into contact in the course of daily life.
Hayakawa’s honest, at times appropriately unsettling, inclusion of liberty and danger, risk and safety, depicts universal childhood in an authentic manner that invites the audience to recall vivid memories as a complement to Fuki’s experiences.
In Japanese with English subtitles, “Renoir” screens at Webster University’s Winifred Moore auditorium Friday, June 26, through Sunday, June 28, at 7:30 p.m. each of those evenings. For more information, you may visit the film series website at: Webster.edu/filmseries and you will find my full review at Also, please subscribe to AWFJ.org (Alliance of Women Film Journalists) to read all of my reviews, festival coverage and other essays.