Cinematographer Rui Arichika about her experience shooting with Optimo Prime Series on “Falling into Silence” (僕の中に咲く花火)
In this quiet coming-of-age drama set in rural Japan, cinematographer Rui Arichika crafts a delicate visual world shaped by emotion, memory, and nature. She speaks to us about his creative process, key visual references, and how Angénieux Optimo Primes helped translate the story’s sensitivity to the screen.
What visual style were you looking to present in this project?
My first impression after reading the script was that of a dark coming-of-age story. The main character, Minoru, a high- school teen faced with internal struggle, slowly begins to find himself through reconnections with his family and encounters with new people. One of my main visual goals was to portray his world in a way so that the audience can join his journey.
I focused on the texture and color so that I could portray the environment and atmosphere that he’s going through.
The story takes place during summertime in a small town in Gifu, Japan. The unique steamy stickiness that the Japanese summer has, especially in the country side, was an important element to create the certain quality in our film. Two main colors in our pallet ended up being the warm brown that illustrates the hot humidity and the cool blue that shows his isolation within his surroundings.
What was/were the expectation(s) or request(s) on the visual from the director?
In the early process of our visual construction, Yuto Shimizu, the director and the writer of the film often said “I want the message for the movie to be real and kind for everyone who watches it” as the story focuses on sensitive topics such as loss, grief, and fear. We really valued the main character’s point of view as we were building the film’s visual language. To stay intimate to the main character, I wanted my camera to be as gentle as possible in terms of the movement and also the distance. The camera only moves with him or towards him as he goes through some changes either emotionally or physically.
What were the key references when building your images?
Mirror (1975) by Andrei Tarkovsky, especially the childhood memory scenes, was one of our biggest references from the early stage of development because of its atmosphere and feeling of time being stooped in the countryside.
Well-considered framing and subtle camera movement highlight the slow pacing of their life but also the quiet madness creeping in throughout the film, which was a similar intention that my director and I had for depicting how Minoru is influenced by his surroundings.
Journey Into Solitude (1972) by Koichi Saito was another reference we had. We wanted to apply their use of long lens in its opening montage scene to our montage scene when Minoru returns to his house from school. Although the film is mostly through his point of view, this montage breaks the perspective and allows the audience to understand the character better and also prepare for diving into more of his world.
Why did you choose Angenieux Optimo Primes for this project?
The set of Angenieux Optimo Primes checked off of what we needed for all the visual choices that I stated earlier. In addition to the lenses’ ability to capture the color very delicately, their perfect amount of detailed and soft texture depicted the sensitivity that characters in the film had. They don’t have breathing and vignetting but still hold the soft quality and keep the audience’s attention to characters’ minds without distracting. Natural motifs such as rain, river, or fire are included in our visual language as the metaphor for the cycle of nature. I believed that Optimo Primes would be the great fit to photograph the vibrant color and texture.
What focal length(s) did you use and what were your considerations?
I mainly used 21, 28, 40, 60, 75, 135, and 200mm, and the most used focal lengths were 40, 60, and 135. Since I wanted to limit what we see in the background of Minoru, we mostly used 40mm at the beginning and 21 or 28mm when we really had to due to the size of a room in the first half of the film. As our hero begins facing people around him and also himself, we introduced wider lens as his perspective opens up. In contrast, we often used 60mm for the close-ups when Minoru was still closed off and started being more intimate with him by using tighter lenses such as 75 or 135mm.
What do you like about the Angenieux Optimo Primes? Could you tell us a bit about your experience with the lenses?
The largest aperture of the lenses is T1.8, which enables us to use the shallow depth of field to portray how Minoru shuts himself inside his own world at the beginning of the film. We also were expecting to switch between tripods, hand-held, and steadicam during the shoot depending on what emotions Minoru was experiencing. The light weight and compact nature of the lenses provided us the great flexibility and enabled us to switch between different rigs very quick and efficiently.
What is your next plan? Any new attempt you would like to try on?
I have a few narrative projects going on and I’m also looking to expand into other mediums such as commercials and installations. As for my future with Angenieux lens goes, I did not get to use the customization of the iris units for Optimo Prime this time around.
Controlling flares and bokeh depending on where the story takes place would be any cinematographers’ dream and I am very excited to come across the right project for it.
