A couple of interesting documentaries I’ve watched recently, besides those I saw at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival.
Shot in four years, 越後奥三面 山に生かされた日々 Echigo Okumiomote: A Traditional Mountain Village (1984) follows the everyday life of Okumiomote, a mountain village in Niigata prefecture, near the border with Yamagata prefecture. The village, its inhabitants, the mountains, the forest and the rivers, form a fascinating ecosystem and microcosm of a life (1980-1984) dependent upon and regulated by natural elements and the cycle of seasons. This lifestyle and the specific traditions, customs and habits—performed, changed and improved throughout centuries by the inhabitants—would eventually disappear years after the documentary was filmed, due to the construction of the Okumiomote Dam (the area would be submerged).
The documentary has been recently digitally remastered and screened, together with other works by director and video ethnographer Himeda Tadayoshi, at a special retrospective organized at Athénée Français Culture Center in Tokyo.
While the film opens with one of the villagers talking about the anti-dam movement active since 1971, the entirety of the documentary depicts matter-of-factly the various customs and jobs done in the mountains and in the fields (hunting, gathering, harvesting). Only the last 30 minutes are more a direct reflection on the disappearance of the village, and on the act of documenting its existence and preserving its memory on film. The documentary is narrated, or better, commented, in a very friendly manner, so to speak, by Himeda himself. The presence of the director and his troupe is never hidden, once we even see a special meeting, requested by Himeda himself, when the village’s hunters are strongly opposing the presence of the camera during their upcoming bear-hunting trip. This film pairs very well, thematically but not stylistically, with Haneda Sumiko’s 早池峰の賦 Ode to Mt. Hayachine, filmed almost during the same years in the mountains of Iwate prefecture.
Echigo Okumiomote was accompanied by a publication of a huge volume about the life of the village, an ethnographic study and document of the area (I own it, I might return to the movie and the book in the future). Himeda would return to Okumiomote in 1996 to film a new work, 越後奥三面 第二部 ふるさとは消えたか Echigo Okumiomote dai ni bu furusato wa kieta ka, about the situation after the people of the village were forced to relocate. One of the discoveries of 2023 for me.
Nguyen Quoc Phi was a Vietnamese migrant worker, who on 31 August 2017 was reported for a car theft in Hsinchu County, near Taipei. On the same day, he was shot nine times by police officer Chen Chung-wen. He was left bleeding on the ground, and tragically died on his way to the hospital. A part of the public in Taiwan supported Chen’s use of firearms against the runaway immigrant who resisted arrest.
And Miles to Go Before I Sleep (Tsai Tsung-lung, 2022) is a documentary that asks the viewer uncomfortable questions, first by sketching the situation of immigrant workers in Taiwan (regular and irregular), and then by using images filmed by the body cameras of the policeman who shot Nguyen to death. These are very tough scenes to watch: after being shot, the young man lies down completely naked, slowly dying, with the officers observing and walking around him. It could be said that these scenes are exploitative, but as some viewers have commented, they also could function as a sort of “visual moral report”. I’m not sure I agree with the statement.
While as a document of a shocking and tragic event, the work has its merits, I think it meanders too much from the scene of the death, to others with the family of the deceased or where the conditions of immigrants are explained, losing in the end its focus.
While as an experimental film made of and about things, rocks, textiles, roof tiles, wood, and houses, Kyoto by Ichikawa Kon (1969) is extraordinary, also because of the experimental music by Takemitsu Tōru. As a documentary about Kyoto (or Japan more broadly ), the narration and the film itself are orientalist at best, even if it was written by a Japanese. In this respect, it should be noted that the film was commissioned by the Italian company Olivetti, so there’s the usual “I’m giving you what your image of me is” typical of some cultural products made for export in Japan. Ichikawa’s editing here starts (or perhaps it had already started before) to become almost subliminal. For more extreme examples, see his post Inugami Family’s production.
I watched the version with English and Italian narration. I would need to check out the Japanese version as well to properly assess the film.
Wang Bing’s Youth (Spring) was a fascinating viewing experience, for me also because of the long time it took to be completed: it was shot between 2014-2019 and edited/released in 2023. At the same time, I share some of the doubts expressed in this review, points that are not really about how the work is constructed or filmed, but more about the very meaning of the project itself (it’s only the first installment of a trilogy, apparently).
Sometimes the documentary felt like a Big Brother shot in a factory, that is to say, very performative in some of its parts. In the age of YouTube and tik-tok the young generations know very well how to behave when a camera is in front of them, thus, even though it goes against Wang Bing’s style, a certain dialogue with the camera (I’m sure there was, but was cut) would have made the documentary more “authentic”, so to speak. After watching the film, I had the distinct feeling that something was missing and had been cut out.
Having been filmed almost 10 years ago and for 5 years, I also would have liked to see the year of filming for each segment.
Asian Docs 