About "Cafe Lumiere"
*this is an English version of my diary on April 22


I saw the movie "Cafe Lumiere" (directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien) at BAM in Brooklyn the other day. It was so wonderful that I got to feel like watching the director's latest movie "Three Times" as well (as of May 1, I actually saw it. It wasn't as wonderful as Cafe Lumiere).

In "Cafe Lumiere", which is identified as a "Ozu-dedicated movie", you can find many Ozu-like aspects, including the fixed camera shots and straight cuts. Those features are a bit too much like Ozu; but they are great anyway (actually I have not really seen Ozu films much, though...). I was also surprised at Yo Hitoto (the actress) acting very well... really natural. Tadahito Asano was tremendous as well, showing that he is on a different level from Takuya Kimura (I think they both are reputed to be naturally-acting actors, but Kimura seems to be more like "I am acting so natural, ain't I?". Asano, at least in this movie, does not present that kind of attitude). The worst actor was Nenji Kobayashi as the father (still much higher than average though). Although his face, presence and born structures are dominant, once he speaks he is just OK. The mother is nice - she has a cute voice.

Watching this movie, I could not help finding something similar to the works of the Japanese video artists that I compiled into the screening "Theory of Everything". I mean, every single movement of people and things and every single sound in the movie are just incurably beautiful. In this sense, the on-location shoots seems pretty successful. Those who appear behind Hitoto and Asano seem to be normal pedestrians who happened to be there, not even extras. I found some of them look directly at the camera and even saw a couple turning around and seemingly saying "that's Tadanobu Asano, isn't it?". Also, the scene making the best use of the parallel running of Yamanote-line and Keihin-tohoku-line is pretty creative.

I got several discovers from this movie - I feel like I was able to deepen what I had been vaguely thinking about. For example, most of the train stations featured in this movie are where I used to take trains a lot (Nippori, Uguisudani, Yurakucho, etc.), so I was like "I was here, I was in this very place!" To me, video seems like a kind of another cosmos, where time and space behave a little differently from how they do in reality. And this "video cosmos" can be connected to the real world where we live, through a Wormhole-like mechanism, only when some thing(s) or view(s) featured in the video are what you know (that is why, speaking about my work, I employ in my video the very place where the work itself is shown = the very place where the viewer stands = the place everyone knows as long as s/he is seeing my work...). This kind of connection of the video world and the real space occurs also vice versa, when you in reality saw someone that you have seen in movies. For example. if you saw Asano on the road, you would be like "I saw him before in the movie!", and that is when the video world invades into the real space.

The other thing is about a fly that I saw during the movie. I first noticed it in the scene of Yo Hitoto's apartment. The fly was on the table lit white by the sunshine and I thought it was a fly in the movie, but it actually had its shadow on the screen. It then became obvious enough when it flied off the screen. That was a moment when the video and the reality melts/mixes with the fly as a mediator... mmm, that's nice, eh? In an instant, I came up with an idea of a possible work titled "TV and Fly". A sealed room with a TV monitor and a fly inside. The viewer would observe this from outside... I would not make this silly work though.

Sorry I wrote this very roughly, just following ideas coming up to me. Anyway, it was a great opportunity for me to refresh my brain. I would give it 5 stars. Ah, but the last song is a bit strange, perhaps.


for more info about this movie, see here.