Screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival, Ishikawa Kei's A Pale View of Hills—an adaptation of Ishiguro Kazuo's eponymous novel—reexamines post-atomic Nagasaki through the eyes of Etsuko, a middle-aged Japanese woman who has immigrated to the United Kingdom. While the film does not fully retain the original novel's uncanny and dreamlike atmosphere traversing time and space, it proves its value as a profound exploration of memory, guilt, and regret. In particular, the film’s cinematography and production design vividly recreate two distinct eras and settings: 1950s Nagasaki and 1980s Hertfordshire. Hirose Suzu's performance as the younger Etsuko is one of the film's notable strengths. (Molly KIM)