Director Yôko Yamanaka on Her Freewheeling Sophomore Feature, ‘Desert of Namibia'

Vogue

15-05-2025

The first moments of Desert of Namibia, the second feature from Japanese writer-director Yôko Yamanaka, instantly declare a new entrant to the canon of indelible mercurial female protagonists. Twenty-one-year-old Kana (played by 24-year-old Yuumi Kawai) ambles loosely down a Tokyo sidewalk, mouth ajar, swinging her bag wide at her sides, surveying the bustle around her, seemingly content. It's intriguing because it's so unusual.
'In Japan women are expected to behave and move in a certain way, almost like wearing a uniform,' Yamanaka recently told Vogue through a translator, sporting long, ornate nails bedecked with hologram confetti. 'As children, we're free and don't care, but as we grow up, go to school, and start working, we start acting in expected ways. I didn't want Kana to conform to that, and that's most apparent in how she walks, with sloppy gestures and movements. She behaves outside in ways usually reserved for home. Instead of how Japanese women normally act, I wanted Kana to use her body like a child. Mothers have said she reminds them of their very young children.'
By the time the title cards appear onscreen some 40 minutes later, we'll have seen her prove an inconsiderate friend, a careless partner, a messy drunk, a listless worker, impulsive, self-absorbed, and reckless—a bit of trouble, in other words, but fascinating and irresistible. She struggles to care for herself properly but surrounds herself with attentive, patient, caring men who do what they can to manage her antics. She's manic and pixie, perhaps, but far from a dream girl, hurtling toward an uncertain future in a rule-bound, patriarchal society (and bound to be subject to some level of psychological analysis by audiences).