Saudade
(Saudade)

“3D jobs: dirty, dangerous and devalued”: this is how Katsuya Tomita defines the precarious jobs of the workers in Saudade. The film-maker knows all about it: he was a truck driver while he made his first two films, and a builder when he directed Saudade, partly shot on his own working site. Through the stories of several workers sent by agencies on a “rotten” site, this fiction film explores a fragmented national identity, with a very stimulating freedom. Takeru, whose parents ruined themselves with pachinko gambling, sings about his rebellion with a hip hop group which soon shares venues with Japanese- Brazilian capoeira dancers. Seiji has known nothing but building sites, but now feels “at home” at last when he meets a Thai woman: Hosaka is back after many years in Thailand… Relationships are tense between the Japanese and the migrants, a situation clearly exposed by each of their stories. Some youth indulge in nationalism, others in drug addiction – all are the results of a social disaster. “Saudade, writes Philipe Azoury in Libération, is a site where identity is under construction, where those who dig their own grave meet those who lose themselves looking for their own foundations.” Charlotte Garson