In international statistics on organ donation and organ transplantation, Japan is in the lowest places. Seriously ill patients often wait years for a donor organ, and quite a few whose lives could be saved through a transplant die in the endless interim. This shockingly low willingness to donate compared to international standards is culturally based in several respects – at least that's what “Yakushima's Illusion”, the new film by Japanese director Naomi Kawase (“Cherry Blossoms and Red Beans”) tells us.
It was created in European co-production and therefore sends the French doctor Corry (Vicky Krieps) to a clinic for children with heart disease in Kobe to explain the European perspective on organ donation and death to the Japanese staff there. (Does this actually qualify as a white savior narrative? Make up your own mind about it.)
The film's exciting theme isn't enough
In Japanese culture, Corry explains, brain death is not considered death at all, and the end of life is only determined when the heart stops beating – when it is already too late for a transplant. And on the other hand, illness and the reliance on the organs of the deceased for the sake of one's own survival are associated with deep shame and guilt in society. Those who carry a donor organ have to deal with this accusation again and again as to how one can claim to continue living at the expense of others. A cultural conflict that is quite exciting and about which you would actually like to watch a film. Unfortunately, Yakushima's Illusion is not that film.
This is mainly because Naomi Kawase obviously doesn't think this topic is captivating enough to sustain two hours of cinema. So she mixes it with all sorts of other ingredients, but they don't add much of anything interesting to the cinema experience. It starts with the admittedly captivatingly beautiful, but also somewhat kitschy shots from the evergreen rainforest on the Japanese island of Yakushima due to their penchant for esoteric natural mysticism.
In Japan, Frenchwoman Corry (Vicky Krieps) not only finds herself confronted with suffering children and cultural differences – but soon also with a complicated relationship.
There Corry goes hiking – in one of the flashbacks of the film, which is unnecessarily complicated in its achronological narrative style – and meets the mysterious Japanese Jin (Kanichiro Sato) while bathing in the river. Back in Kobe, Jin moves in with her and a relationship full of conflict begins – until Jin disappears without a trace and without a message after an argument. “Jōhatsu” – evaporation – is what the Japanese call this phenomenon, which happens tens of thousands of times a year: people leave their old lives behind without a word in order to start somewhere completely new. The most radical form of ghosting.
Between the very touching scenes from the clinic – who wouldn't have a few tears left over in the face of dying children and grieving parents? – Kawase tells us again and again about this relationship, which was not very credible from the start. At some point it becomes about Corry's search for his missing lover, but there is never any spark. For this type of European joint production, in which protagonists from different countries express banalities in several languages and everything is somehow transcultural, there is the term “Europudding” – here Japan is now joining the producing countries France, Belgium and Luxembourg, and it might be time to establish the word “Eurasia pudding”.
Pretentious banalities
The longer “Yakushima's Illusion” lasts, the more expansive a certain involuntary humor becomes, which always becomes present when the tear-jerking effects surrounding the pediatric cardiology ward, which are often a bit too simple, fade into the background. The things of the heart that Kawase tries to devour with, well, things of the heart (in anatomical terms) come across as all too pretentious and banal.
And when at the end there is a suspenseful episode about a long-awaited donor heart, whose timely delivery is jeopardized by extreme weather conditions, the countdown dramaturgy of this storyline works relatively solidly on its own. This showdown remains another set piece in a film that is falling apart as a whole, the individual narrative threads of which never really come together.
Conclusion: The new film by Japanese director Naomi Kawase, which was created in a European co-production, addresses an interesting topic, but dilutes it with clichéd and banal subplots to create a film that is only momentarily captivating and never really comes to a convincing whole. “Yakushima's Illusion”, for which the term “Eurasia pudding” should be coined, finally finishes off with a fair amount of pretension and unintentional comedy.
We saw “Yakushima's Illusion” as part of the Around the World in 14 Films 2025 film festival.