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Japan twenty years after the death of Yasujiro Ozu, whose work is enshrined as "the sacred treasure of the cinema" by a certain German tourist. The trains that once filled the old cinéaste's films with intimations of inexorable movement are now bullet expresses gliding with smooth impersonality, still at the station a glimpse of a fussy little boy is reassuring proof of his lingering spirit. "In no way a pilgrimage" for Wim Wenders, just a break from the filming of Paris, Texas and a chance to watch John Wayne dubbed on a hotel television screen. A placid picnic under cherry blossoms, a detour into the pachinko parlor, neon-lit bars along the Shinjuku district filtered through the master's 50mm lens. Opening and closing minutes of Tokyo Story (a faded print with French subtitles), interviews with aged collaborators: Chishu Ryu is embarrassed by the fulsome praise and admiringly describes being turned into a blank page by the director, Yuuharu Atsuta showcases the stumpy tripod and stopwatch used for the trademark tatami camera. (Discussing his longtime relationship with Ozu, the anecdotal Atsuta suddenly feels the weight of loss and breaks down like Setsuko Hara.) A brush with Werner Herzog atop the Tokyo Tower (space travel may soon be needed in the search for "transparent and pure images," he grouses), Chris Marker hiding behind a menu during the making of Sans Soleil. The "pure form" of ersatz golf courses and the craftsmanship of wax food for window displays, elsewhere rock 'n' rolling greasers (cf. Fuller's House of Bamboo). A pensive filmic journal and a companion piece to Lightning Over Water—the hero-worship is here far less queasy, related not to a dying body but to a vanishing myth. Cinematography by Ed Lachman.
--- Fernando F. Croce |