A mini retrospective on the streaming platform DAfilms.com, from 17 January to 6 February (free of charge until 24 January) introduces 10 Japanese documentaries presented at the Yamagata International Film Festival from 1989 to 2021. A fascinating path through the cinema of the real produced in Japan in the last three decades.
In 1973 when the Ogawa Production collective made Narita: Heta Village, the sixth documentary on the struggle and resistance of the peasants in Sanrizuka against the construction of the new Narita airport, they not only created one of the most important documentaries in the history of Japanese cinema, but also captured and foreshadowed a series of shifts that would take place in the archipelago in the following years. By moving the attention and the camera from the clashes, a “civil war” as it has been described by many, to focus more on the life of the peasants, their customs and their sense of time, the collective anticipated the interest that cinema and literature would later show towards rural and provincial areas. From a cinema more linked to contingent events taking place in the political and social sphere, towards one more interested in macrohistory and its large movements and cycles. This interest of the group, led by Ogawa Shinsuke, is reflected in their decision to move to the north of Japan, to the Yamagata prefecture, where the collective lived for 14 years, from the second half of the 1970s until the end of the following decade. As it was revealed later, after Ogawa’s death, this period was not without internal conflicts, and within itself it had many of the problems that had already poisoned many of the New Left groups during the 1970s, such as a marked authoritarianism, and an absolute lack of female presence in crucial positions. If the cinematic peak of this long period spent in Yamagata is Magino Village – A Tale / The Sundial Carved with a Thousand Years of Notches (1986), an unidentified filmic object that constructs a mythological and epic mapping of the area and its inhabitants, perhaps it can be said that the most important legacy of the collective and of Ogawa himself is the creation, in 1989, of the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (YIDFF).
Held once every two years in the Japanese city, the festival has become, in its three decades of existence, an important event for those who love the cinema of real and its infinite expressive possibilities. The festival has always stood out to me for the way it is experienced, horizontally so to speak, after the screenings: professionals and filmmakers mingle and interact with enthusiasts, cinema lovers or even just the curious, who come to enjoy the almost party and rock concert-like atmosphere of the event. At the same time, however, Yamagata has also been, since its very beginning, an important launching pad for many Asian authors and for the creation, especially in the 1990s, of a transnational documentary film culture. The first of its kind in Asia, the event contributed to the birth of other festivals, the Taiwan International Documentary Festival for instance, and it also functioned as a pole of attraction for the new wave of Asian filmmakers who came to the fore during a crucial period for the area, the period of democratisation of art with the advent of digital, in China but also in Hong Kong and other parts of South East Asia more generally.
The online retrospective organised by the YIDFF in cooperation with DAfilms is an excellent opportunity to discover some of the most important Japanese films presented at the festival since its foundation. Two works ideally open and close the retrospective, A Movie Capital, a documentary on the first edition of the festival made in 1991 by Iizuka Toshio, one of the members of Ogawa Production, beautifully captures that sense of collaboration and artistic brotherhood between Asian directors mentioned above. While Komian and Pickles by Satō Koichi— presented during the 2021 edition, moved online due to the pandemic— gives an idea of the sense of commonality in Yamagata during the event. The closure of Komian, a popular venue for post-screening discussions and meetings, follows to the closure of a local tsukemono (pickled food) business, Maruhachi Yatarazuke pickling company, the owner of Komian. The film is an occasion to remember and treasure the experiences offered at the venue, but also an example of how the gentrification process, magnified by the economic damage caused by COVID-19, is active and reshaping the urban texture even in small Japanese cities.
The most artistically accomplished works presented in the retrospective are, however, others. All of them are worth watching of course, but I would personally recommend Living on the River Agano by Satō Makoto (I wrote about three of his movies here), Yang Yonghee’s 2005 film Dear Pyongyang, Storytellers by Hamaguchi Ryūsuke and Sakai Kō, and Cenote (2019) by Oda Kaori (here an interview with the artist and a piece on the movie). Here the complete line-up:
A Movie Capital // Toshio IIZUKA // 1991
Living on the River Agano // Makoto SATO // 1992
The Weald // Naomi KAWASE // 1997
The New God // Yutaka TSUCHIYA // 1999
A2 // Tatsuya MORI // 2001
The Cheese and the Worms // Haruyo KATO // 2005
Dear Pyongyang // Yong-hi YANG // 2005
Storytellers // Ko SAKAI, Ryusuke HAMAGUCHI // 2013
Cenote // Kaori ODA // 2019
Pickles and Komian Club // Koichi SATO // 2021
The complete selection will be available entirely for free on DAFilms.com from January 17 – 23 at this link: https://dafilms.com/program/1126-made-in-japan-yamagata-1989-2021
Asian Docs 