This article appeared in Tokyo Weekender Vol. 1, 2025.
To read the entire issue, click here.
British director Mark Gill was flicking through The Guardian newspaper in 2015 when he came across an article about the late Japanese photographer Masahisa Fukase. At the time, Gill’s first feature-length film, England Is Mine — a biographical drama based on the early years of singer Morrissey before he joined The Smiths — was in its post-production stage, and he was starting to think about possible ideas for a second movie.
Fukase’s story instantly intrigued him. Born in Hokkaido in 1934, Fukase is best known for his haunting photographs of ravens, which were taken in a period of intense grief after the dissolution of his marriage to his second wife, Yoko Wanibe. A passionate, obsessive man of great talent, Fukase lived a tumultuous life that culminated in tragedy: He died in 2012, having spent two decades in a coma after suffering a traumatic brain injury from a fall at his favorite bar, Nami, in Shinjuku’s Golden Gai area.
In October 2024 — nine years after he first read about the supremely gifted yet tortured artist — Gill premiered his biopic of Fukase’s turbulent life at the Tokyo International Film Festival. Released nationwide this month, it’s titled Ravens and stars recent Golden Globe recipient Tadanobu Asano, who is superb as Fukase, a complex individual fighting his inner demons. It’s an uncompromising and, at times, heartbreaking story about a man who Gill says tried to “push photography in a new direction.”
Life Through a Camera Lens
From early on in his career, Fukase was known for his deeply introspective pictures. His first solo exhibition consisted of two series of photographs — one titled Kill the Pig, displaying scenes of blood and gore at a slaughterhouse in Tokyo, and one titled Naked, which included images of his first wife, Yukiyo Kawakami, and a harrowing picture of their stillborn child. He regularly photographed Kawakami. However, with his second wife — who is usually referred to by just her first name, Yoko — Fukase seemed to take things to another level.
The photographer was, by all accounts, obsessed with Yoko. During the later years of their marriage, he captured her image every morning from the window of their fourth-floor apartment as she headed to work — photos which later became his iconic From Window series. “I think that book is a good barometer of their marriage,” says Gill. “It starts out with a lot of joy, but you can gradually see her becoming tired and, in some pictures, annoyed.”
Feeling suffocated, Yoko was convinced that they were together purely for the sake of his photography and that her husband only ever saw her “through the lens of a camera,” as she later wrote. In 1976, she left him. Their divorce hit Fukase hard. Severely depressed, he returned to the town where he grew up and found refuge in the ravens that would flock around his local train station. A metaphor for his inner turmoil, the pictures he took during this time led to his best-known collection, The Solitude of Ravens, which in 2010 was selected by the British Journal of Photography as the best photobook published between 1986 and 2009.
Meeting Yoko
When Gill first saw The Solitude of Ravens, he found the images “really haunting.” The fact they were taken in response to Yoko leaving added an extra layer of meaning, making them feel even more powerful for the Manchester-born filmmaker. He was fascinated by the obsessive love story, but, occupied with other work, Gill had to put the potential project to the side for a while. He returned to it after a couple of years and received some funding, which allowed him to write a script, working alongside his producer, Megumi Fukasawa Ishii. He was also able to take a research trip to Japan, where he was given the opportunity to interview Yoko.
“Before that, I actually bumped into her in London’s Michael Hoppen Gallery, which was exhibiting The Solitude of Ravens in 2016,” recalls Gill. “I mentioned the idea of the film, but I think my words got lost in translation. When I met her again a few years later, she said she remembered some British guy talking to her about a movie. At first, she was a little guarded, but that didn’t surprise me. She’s a woman in her 80s, who’s had a whole life outside of Fukase. It must feel strange to be defined by those 13 or so years she spent with him.”
The more they spoke, the more Yoko warmed to Gill, and they eventually moved from meeting at a neutral venue to her apartment. He says she told him everything about their marriage, including some things that he felt weren’t appropriate for the film. Gill, who describes Yoko as a “sharp, strong-willed and very blunt individual,” was never going to reduce her to a mere muse. In his eyes, it’s as much her film as Fukase’s. When the photographer complains about Yoko stealing the attention from him, his lifelong friend and supporter Morio Shoda (played by Sosuke Ikematsu) replies, “Yoko is a star. In one way, she is why your work sings.”
Realizing His Vision
Having spent time with her, and encountered her power and charisma firsthand, Gill was concerned that he would struggle to find the right actress to play the role of Yoko. His casting director then sent him It Feels So Good, an erotic film starring Kumi Takiuchi. “I just thought she was magnetic when I watched her on the screen,” he says. “I didn’t understand the dialogue in the movie because it didn’t have subtitles, but I believed everything she was doing. It was absolutely astonishing to watch. I knew we had found Yoko. She was magnificent.”
As for the role of Fukase, there was only one name on the director’s list. “I saw Asano in Ichi the Killer and a couple of other films like Journey to the Shore and asked the producers if we could get the first script to him,” says Gill. “We first met via Zoom in 2021 when he was filming for Shogun. Even then, I could feel his passion for the project. He’s just got a movie star face. I knew he could play both ends of Fukase’s character: the wild man and the quiet guy. Every day, he delivered something I enjoyed.”
One of Gill’s most interesting innovations in this film is the introduction of a character called The Raven — a human-sized, feathered creature that embodies Fukase’s inner monologue, and which only Fukase can see. The director believes it is this “fantastical element” that distinguishes it from other biopics.
“I wanted to go down that surrealist route with England Is Mine by introducing characters like Oscar Wilde and Ziggy Stardust,” he says. “In the end, though, I was talked out of it. I didn’t back myself up then, but I’m glad I did this time. These days, it feels like many directors are making movies to please audiences rather than making them for themselves, which means they’re less likely to take risks. With Ravens, I made something I wanted to see, and a lot of people have told me it’s like nothing they’ve seen before.”
Ravens was released nationwide in Japan on March 28, 2025.
There will be special screenings with English subtitles at Toho Cinemas Chanter (Apr 4–10), Shinjuku Musashinokan (Apr 4–10) and Euro Space (Apr 6–8).
Follow the film’s official Instagram account here.
