‘Renoir’: An impressionistic portrait of grief and girlhood

Screened in the main competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Chie Hayakawa’s second feature, “Renoir,” is rather unlike her first, 2022’s “Plan 75,” which also premiered at Cannes and became a favorite on the festival circuit.

In contrast to the earlier film’s clear concept — the elderly are encouraged to sign up for state-sponsored euthanasia in a near-future Japan — the movingly impressionistic “Renoir” is a loosely plotted journey through the life and mind (including the vivid dreams) of an 11-year-old girl (talented newcomer Yui Suzuki) as her father succumbs to terminal cancer.

In scripting and directing “Renoir,” Hayakawa drew on memories of her own father’s death from cancer when she was her protagonist’s age and the film feels deeply rooted in the characters’ pasts and intensely alive to their present moment. One parallel is the 1993 Shinji Somai masterpiece “Moving,” which also features a strong-willed girl (Tomoko Tabata) dealing with a family crisis — in her case, her parents’ divorce.