Shuji Terayama

Just found some old notes on Terayama's shorts, which I had taken during the screening. It wasn't much, but it gave me back some of the feelings I had when I experienced them for the first time. Hopefully I'll get the possibility to see them again in the future. A DVD release would be a small wonder, but who knows what the japanese companies will try in the future. Most of the films are without dialogue anyway, so that would be an option. But I guess it's more a dream than an actual possibility.

Terayama himself was throughout his creative life surrounded by controversies and misunderstandings. Starting to write early in his life after a childhood full of complications and misery, Terayama in the beginning earned his life as a writer of broadcasts or theatric drama. But his interest in film was also developed early, and by the age of 25, he had already been responsible for the screenplays of some shorts.His first feature length film was the notorious Emperor Tomato Ketchup in 1970 which some accused of pedophilia. When he died at the early age of 49, he left a legacy of nearly 200 published literary works, over 20 short and full length films as well as numerous works of theater.

From what I have seen, his films are not only some of the best japanese avant-garde films, but should be put alongside the most innovative work world cinema has to offer. Clearly coming from surrealist art, his films openly play with the grotesque, but without trying to be understood as simply another counter-attack against established rules. They are far more effective through the seeming casualty with which they are presented and discussed. The disintegration of inherent norms and perceptive rules a viewer might have formed thus happens organically. Organical is also one of the feelings that came to my mind for the films themselves. They don't seem so much a deliberate construct, than an unconscious act of Terayamas creativity and personality brought immediately onto the screen - the work of an auteur in the best sense of the word.

The films I saw are listed without an english title, because I saw them in a german theater, where they were shown without subtitles or further explanation. Almost no info on "imdb" is available on them, and I didn't search the net any further. These were, in the order I saw them:

Issunbushi o kijutsu suru kokoromi (Japan / 1977)

Kage no eiga - nito onna (Japan / 1977)

Keshigomu (Japan / 1977)

Maldoror no uta [without subtitles] (Japan / 1977)

Meikyu-tan (Japan / 1975)

Shoken-ki (Japan / 1977)

After watching the films only one thing seemed definite. This is a filmmaker I will steal from blatantly when I make my own movies. The films are hard to pin down and to evaluate not only because of their surreal imagery, but also because the music used throughout most of them is pure genius. At times eerie but always hauntingly beautiful, the music alone is able to evoke such strong feelings that the image becomes secondary. Of course this may be intended by Terayama - an inspiration for the viewer to find his own corresponding memories to the universal challenges presented. You definitely have to consider the acoustics and the visuals as equal. Nevertheless, when it was extremely powerful, the music seemed to almost distract from the overall concept. I'd love to have the opportunity to listen to it seperately, but as I don't read japanese, I didn't get the name of the composer.

Everything derives itself from memory. The plot, the structure, the music, all indicate a fascination with the workings of the human mind. Loss and remembrance being not only the primary sources of inspiration, but the main reason for the existence of the films and their characters itself. The films are drenched in a melancholic feel that sometimes overshadows everything else, while the characters are mostly occupied with their past which keeps them trapped in the present. The silent pictures and photographs often give the impression of old home-videos. Through their silence the secrets are kept.But this is by far not all that can be found in these short gems. Terayama is constantly playing with the surface of film itself, recalling the work of Peter Greenaway, though the latter seldom achieves a comparable depth or complexity. Using scratches and erasures on the filmmaterial itself, some sequences become like a short by Stan Brakhage, though they are only an added layer to the rest of the film, never overpowering the other devices used. And despite the recurring attempt to erase and destroy the film, (a trace of an omnipresent and struggling god/director) the image itself turns out to be much more powerful than its source. Repression is presented as a futile act, the emergence of the subconscious as unavoidable. But nothing is final. People and objects disappear and reappear in the frame, or in added integrated framings like doors or windows, which are opening up seemingly new dimensions for our conventional world. If this is only an illusion or an actual possibility remains for the viewer to decide. Meaning upon meaning is layered in a suggestive way, with the camera using mainly long and static shots. Repetition is an ever-present process of not only the fugue-like music, but life itself. A frame in a frame in a frame...Also important seems to be the color-quality of the film-stock, which has a distinctive "non-color" look whenever used. Like tinting in silent films, it relies much more on blue and brownish tones, which perfectly complement the removed but intense atmosphere and the melancholy mood.The films also appear like a form of self-therapy for Terayama, where he can negotiate and re-evaluate his past through various new placings of perspective.In the end they never offer a depressing or hopeless perspective on life, because the recurring themes of change and transformation are omnipresent. In Terayama's world nothing is definite, the fluidity of time and space conquering everything and everybody.