[KineJapan] Lumiere Gokko

[M Arnold]

Markus and everyone -

What a year. I hope you are all safe and healthy.

It's funny that you mention Dylan, Markus. I also thought of
Subterranean Homesick Blues when I saw that shot. I didn't see
Ginsberg though. The Ozu on the wall is a poster from the UM Center
for Japanese Studies Silent Ozu film series that I gave to Sano last
era. It looks like he or Kamada relocated it there as a kind of easter
egg just for the 16mm part.

I chuckled at the way Sano's mask had a cigarette burn in it at first,
like a frame at the end of a reel of film, and then transformed into
the poorly-fitting, pure white screen of an Abenomask for the 16mm
footage.

I liked the project. The 'dance' between life and death (and birth,
which also plays a role in the Sakamoto part) was reflected in the
many tales of film-video remediation and reproduction that these
directors explored in their pink films in the 1990s and 2000s. I'm not
surprised to see that reappear as a concept here. And the shorts at
the end, set up as if being projected and recorded in a distant
screening room, were lovely. It was virtually an ideal cinema.

As Imaoka explains, the grave in the first part belongs to pink
director Ueno Toshiya, who passed away in 2013. The shot of Kamada
walking into the sea is apparently a reference to a scene in a pink
film that Kamada worked on with actor Ito Takeshi, who died a year
after Ueno. The anniversary of Ito's death was just a few days ago.

The man and woman dancing in Meike's "social dancing" part are of
course Kawase Yota and Sasaki Yumeka. It was nice to see them in the
same frame again. It was also great to see Meike making a movie. After
the shoot he says, "It's been 14 years since I made a movie for people
to see. It took 14 years to shoot this one minute of film." At one
point in the video he says he has plans to use the Bolex in another
upcoming film project. I'm looking forward to that.

I got in touch with Meike, Kamada, and Sano shortly after the Lumiere
video was posted. Sano told me there was a second video, which Kamada
then sent me the link to.

"Seikansha" a.k.a. "Les Survivants" visits Sano again, with an
extended version of the interview from the Lumiere shoot, a few more
clues about Sano's next project, and a couple of brief clips from his
rare (and not silent) 8mm debut. Kamada then travels to talk with
musician and Aoyama Shinji collaborator Yamada Isao, who apparently
recovered from an unspecified surgery. If the focus on the first video
was image, here it is sound.

Both of the videos are unlisted and include some personal details, so
I asked Kamada for permission to share "Seikansha" here and will
follow up if he says yes.

I didn't look closely into the Cheer for Art website. On a glance it
appears to be a government-financed initiative that gave applicants a
small stipend to complete digital video projects during the pandemic.
I stopped scrolling through the video list after the 100th page. I'm
sure there are other interesting videos to uncover.

Best,
Michael Arnold


On Mon, Sep 7, 2020 at 8:43 PM Markus Nornes via KineJapan
<kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:
>
> Pink directors Imaoka Shinji, Sakamoto Rei, Kamada Yoshitaka, and Meike Mitsuru collaborate on Playing Lumiere. I didn't have high expectations after hearing the pretense: each shoots a silent Lumiere-like short on a borrowed Bolex and a single roll of film. The online documentary is essentially a making-of piece, climaxing with a compilation of the 16mm silent shorts.
>
> I just finished watching, and count it as one of the most interesting of the corona era experiments. Each of the silent actualities powerfully play off the others in a dance of life and death, literally and figuratively. It's all quite unexpected, moving, and charming.
>
> The highlight: veteran Sano Kazuhiro, who can't speak in any case thanks to throat cancer (!), recounts his close encounter with death by virus and his will to make more art. He channels Dylan, with Ozu as Ginzberg in the background (!?).
>
> It feels like it takes forever to get to the "actual films," but the payoff was actually quite moving and absolutely a reflection of the times. Check it out here:
>
> https://cheerforart.jp/detail/4787?fbclid=IwAR14aMO_9x8KRKs94J0C6l-7HILek2q5ikDJufd5E-SmqfBZcm_TXIhIqSA
>
> Markus
>
>
> ---
>
> Markus Nornes
> Professor of Asian Cinema
> Department of Film, Television and Media, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, Penny Stamps School of Art & Design
>
> Department of Film, Television and Media
> 6348 North Quad
> 105 S. State Street
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285
>
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