Gōzō Yoshimasu is maybe the most well-known Japanese poet today, a classic writer, a pioneer of poetry happenings. Have you attended his performances before you made this film? Was his work present in your life for a long time?
Of course, when I was a student, I read Gozo Yoshimasu’s poetry for more than 30 years, and I was impressed and stimulated by his avant-garde expression and his attitude of pursuing the possibilities of poetry. However, it was about 5 years ago that I started interacting with him.
At that time, I had been working on an experimental project called “Cinema from Sound” for several years. It was a series of works that explored what cinema is by going back and forth between video performance and film production in collaboration with electronic musicians, voice performers, and dancers.
http://keishichiri.com/performancescat/cinemafromsound/
A friend of mine introduced this project to Mr. Yoshimasu Gozo-san. He took an interest in my work and a friend encouraged me to collaborate with him. Around that time, Kukangendai, who is also a friend of mine, was scheduled to perform with Yoshimasu, so I decided to get involved in that. At first, I was going to shoot a documentary for research, but I was inspired by the depth of Mr. Yoshimasu’s expression and the sincerity of Kukangendai that followed it, and decided to turn this documentary into a work.
I spend a lot of time creating. After two years of the spread of COVID‑19, the completion of this movie “Se-Back” feels like the beginning of a further collaboration with Mr. Yoshimasu. I may finally be able to start creating works based on Gozo Yoshimasu’s poetry. In that sense, I think it will have a greater influence and stimulation on my life and work from now on.
“Se-back” feels like a prophetic film. The performance you shot took place in 2019. Mr. Gōzō Yoshimasu spent a few weeks in isolation in a hotel room, looking out the window for many days and preparing for his concert, where he is wearing a facemask. Do you think that he as a poet had an artistic premonition and certain apocalyptic feelings?
Gozo Yoshimasu is not a prophet. He had a sore throat at this performance, so he was wearing a mask at first. However, chance events often result in phenomena that hint at the future, and artistic premonitions and inspirations are terrifying beyond logic.
Looking out the window at the sea that caused the tsunami, he wrote a poem saying that white words koto (words) came to mind, and that they might have been the breath of Isana (whale). And in this poem, he repeats and rephrases the whiteness that lies beyond resignation. I’m thinking about what Mr. Yoshimasu called “whiteness.” This is not limited to the damage caused by the tsunami, but also the enormous damage caused by the spread of COVID‑19, including the transformation of the world that it has caused. This is because I think it also points to providence.
In general, poetry is considered as one of the arts that is especially hard to translate from one culture to another for obvious reasons. It is incredible to see this performance, which is also a concert and a ritual, that is based on such a beautiful and avant-garde poem, but at the same time reaches us even beyond words, as something primordial. Did you try to convey this feeling? And, speaking of translation, could you say some words about the title of the film itself, “Se-Back”?
The short answer is exactly that. Is poetry expressed in words? If the origin of poetry lies beyond language and culture, or lies deeper and deeper, then Yoshimasu’s poetry, which seeks to reach and grasp that origin, it’s an attempt to understand the meaning of words and to help them. It may be an expression that can be conveyed without translation.
In fact, the intonation of Mr. Yoshimasu’s voice, each of his gestures, the automatism-like drawings drawn on the glass, and the performance of Kukangendai in response to them all came together to form a single poem. It seemed like a ritual that translates the words written in the poem into various non-verbal expressions and leads to the other side of the words.
I have tried to frame and montage carefully to properly convey this precious expression. My intention at that time was to make people imagine the invisible depths beyond what they can see.
Therefore, I put the meaning of the origin of poetry in the title “Back”.
