Official Selection

A MISSING PART

Guillaume Senez | France, Belgium | 2024 | 98 min. | In French and Japanese with English and Spanish subtitles
A MISSING PART

For nine years, a French taxi driver has been driving the streets of Tokyo searching for his daughter, from whom he has been separated by divorce and Japan’s family law denying him rights because he is a foreigner. Now hopeless, he is considering returning to France when the unthinkable happens: the girl gets into his taxi. As in his previous Our Struggles, the filmmaker Guillaume Senez provides a superb performance by Romain Duris, again against the backdrop of emotional responsibilities, and solidifies a (humanist, poetic) style that likens him to fellow countrymen Dardenne and Lafosse. A subtle, contemplative drama about second chances which, beyond questioning its legal system, presents an image of Japan far from the exoticism, fetishism and glamourisation typical of the Western gaze.