1
00:00:41,374 --> 00:00:43,569
The first image he told me about
2
00:00:43,777 --> 00:00:47,508
was of three children
on a road in Iceland in 1965.
3
00:00:54,988 --> 00:00:57,218
He said for him
it was the image of happiness,
4
00:00:57,424 --> 00:01:00,416
and that he'd often tried
to link it to other images,
5
00:01:00,627 --> 00:01:03,152
but it had never worked.
6
00:01:03,363 --> 00:01:07,265
He wrote me, "I'll have to put it
all alone at the beginning of a film,
7
00:01:07,467 --> 00:01:09,662
with a long piece of black leader.
8
00:01:09,869 --> 00:01:13,669
If they don't see happiness in the
picture, at least they'll see the black. "
9
00:01:47,774 --> 00:01:51,175
He wrote, "I'm just back
from Hokkaido, the northern island.
10
00:01:51,744 --> 00:01:56,408
Rich and hurried Japanese take the plane.
Others take the ferry.
11
00:01:56,616 --> 00:01:59,278
Waiting, immobility,
snatches of sleep -
12
00:01:59,486 --> 00:02:01,977
curiously it all makes me think
of some past or future war.
13
00:02:02,188 --> 00:02:04,713
Night trains, air raids,
fall-out shelters.
14
00:02:04,924 --> 00:02:08,724
Small fragments of war
enshrined in everyday life. "
15
00:02:29,015 --> 00:02:32,075
He liked the fragility
of those moments suspended in time,
16
00:02:32,285 --> 00:02:36,381
memories whose only function
was to leave behind memories.
17
00:02:36,589 --> 00:02:40,685
He wrote, "After circling the globe,
only banality still interests me.
18
00:02:40,894 --> 00:02:45,058
On this trip I've tracked it relentlessly,
like a bounty hunter.
19
00:02:46,900 --> 00:02:48,868
At dawn, we'll be in Tokyo. "
20
00:03:14,360 --> 00:03:16,385
He used to write me from Africa.
21
00:03:16,596 --> 00:03:20,692
He contrasted African time
with European and Asian time.
22
00:03:20,900 --> 00:03:24,495
He said that in the 19th century,
mankind had come to terms with space,
23
00:03:24,704 --> 00:03:28,071
and that the great question of the 20th
would be different concepts of time.
24
00:03:28,274 --> 00:03:29,639
"By the way,
25
00:03:29,842 --> 00:03:33,278
did you know that
there are emus in the Ile de France?"
26
00:03:42,555 --> 00:03:44,523
He wrote
that in the Bijago Islands,
27
00:03:44,724 --> 00:03:47,818
it's the young girls
who choose their fiancés.
28
00:03:48,294 --> 00:03:52,924
He wrote that in the suburbs of Tokyo,
there's a temple consecrated to cats.
29
00:04:13,286 --> 00:04:16,813
"I wish I could convey the simplicity,
the lack of affectation of this couple
30
00:04:17,023 --> 00:04:23,087
who'd come to place an inscribed
wooden slat in the cat cemetery
31
00:04:23,296 --> 00:04:26,322
so that their cat Tora
would be protected.
32
00:04:26,532 --> 00:04:29,467
No, she wasn't dead.
She'd just run away.
33
00:04:29,669 --> 00:04:33,070
But on the day of her death,
no one would know how to pray for her,
34
00:04:33,273 --> 00:04:37,369
how to intercede with death so that
he would call her by her right name.
35
00:04:38,011 --> 00:04:40,844
So they had to come in the rain
36
00:04:41,047 --> 00:04:46,644
to perform the rite that would repair
the web of time where it had been broken. "
37
00:04:58,498 --> 00:05:00,489
He wrote,
38
00:05:00,700 --> 00:05:03,999
"I'll have spent my life trying to
understand the function of remembering,
39
00:05:04,203 --> 00:05:07,400
which is not the opposite of forgetting,
but rather its inner lining.
40
00:05:07,607 --> 00:05:11,634
We don't remember. We rewrite memory
much as history is rewritten.
41
00:05:12,979 --> 00:05:15,812
How can one remember thirst?"
42
00:05:31,397 --> 00:05:34,389
He didn't like
to dwell on poverty,
43
00:05:34,600 --> 00:05:36,431
but in everything
that he wanted to show,
44
00:05:36,636 --> 00:05:39,571
there were also
the failures of the Japanese model.
45
00:05:39,772 --> 00:05:44,300
"A world full of bums, of lumpens,
of outcasts, of Koreans.
46
00:05:45,411 --> 00:05:49,939
Too broke to afford drugs,
they get drunk on beer or fermented milk.
47
00:05:50,650 --> 00:05:54,086
This morning in Namidabashi,
20 minutes from the glories of downtown,
48
00:05:54,287 --> 00:05:58,951
a character took his revenge on society
by directing traffic at this intersection.
49
00:05:59,225 --> 00:06:01,785
Luxury for them would be
a large bottle of sake
50
00:06:01,994 --> 00:06:05,623
of the type poured over tombs
on the day of the dead.
51
00:06:34,127 --> 00:06:37,255
I bought a round
in a bar in Namidabashi,
52
00:06:37,463 --> 00:06:40,091
a place where people stare
at each other with equality.
53
00:06:40,299 --> 00:06:45,259
The threshold below which every man
is as good as any other, and knows it. "
54
00:06:58,918 --> 00:07:02,854
He told me about the jetty on Fogo
in the Cape Verde Islands.
55
00:07:03,856 --> 00:07:07,553
"How long have they been there
waiting for the boat?
56
00:07:07,760 --> 00:07:10,126
Patient as pebbles,
but ready to pounce.
57
00:07:10,797 --> 00:07:14,062
They're a people of wanderers,
of navigators, of world travelers.
58
00:07:15,468 --> 00:07:18,869
They arose from crossbreeding
on these rocks that the Portuguese used
59
00:07:19,071 --> 00:07:21,198
as a marshaling yard
for their colonies.
60
00:07:21,407 --> 00:07:24,672
A people of nothing, a people
of emptiness, a vertical people.
61
00:07:25,645 --> 00:07:27,306
Frankly,
62
00:07:27,513 --> 00:07:29,208
isn't it stupid to tell people,
63
00:07:29,415 --> 00:07:33,146
like they teach in film school,
not to look at the camera?"
64
00:07:46,165 --> 00:07:47,632
He wrote...
65
00:07:49,168 --> 00:07:52,296
"The Sahel is not only
what is shown of it when it is too late.
66
00:07:52,505 --> 00:07:56,771
Drought seeps into this land
like water into a leaking boat.
67
00:07:56,976 --> 00:07:59,501
The animals resurrected
for carnival in Bissau
68
00:07:59,712 --> 00:08:01,543
will be petrified again
69
00:08:01,747 --> 00:08:04,944
as soon as a new attack
has changed the savannah into a desert.
70
00:08:05,151 --> 00:08:09,281
It's a state of survival that rich countries
have forgotten, with one exception.
71
00:08:09,489 --> 00:08:11,719
You guessed it. Japan.
72
00:08:13,793 --> 00:08:16,694
My constant comings and goings
are not a search for contrasts.
73
00:08:16,896 --> 00:08:19,296
They're a journey
to the extreme poles of survival. "
74
00:09:48,654 --> 00:09:50,713
He spoke to me of Sei Shonagon,
75
00:09:50,923 --> 00:09:54,188
a lady-in-waiting to Princess Sadako
in the 11th century,
76
00:09:54,393 --> 00:09:56,691
during the Heian period.
77
00:09:58,931 --> 00:10:01,126
"Do we ever know
where history is really made?
78
00:10:01,334 --> 00:10:04,997
Rulers used complicated
strategies to fight one another,
79
00:10:05,204 --> 00:10:08,435
while real power lay
with a family of hereditary regents.
80
00:10:08,641 --> 00:10:12,634
The emperor's court was but a place
of intrigues and intellectual games.
81
00:10:12,845 --> 00:10:17,145
But by learning to draw
a sort of melancholy comfort
82
00:10:17,350 --> 00:10:20,945
from the contemplation
of the tiniest things,
83
00:10:21,153 --> 00:10:24,680
this small group of idlers
left a mark on Japanese sensibility
84
00:10:24,890 --> 00:10:28,519
much deeper than the mediocre
thundering of the politicians.
85
00:10:28,728 --> 00:10:31,219
Shonagon had a passion for lists.
86
00:10:31,430 --> 00:10:33,625
A list of 'elegant things, '
87
00:10:33,833 --> 00:10:35,892
of 'distressing things, '
88
00:10:36,102 --> 00:10:39,299
or even of
'things not worth doing. '
89
00:10:39,505 --> 00:10:42,963
One day she drew up a list
of 'things that quicken the heart. '
90
00:10:43,175 --> 00:10:45,666
Not a bad criterion,
I realize when I'm filming.
91
00:10:45,878 --> 00:10:47,345
I bow to the economic miracle,
92
00:10:47,546 --> 00:10:50,174
but I really want to show
the neighborhood celebrations. "
93
00:14:26,765 --> 00:14:28,357
He wrote...
94
00:14:29,268 --> 00:14:31,031
"Coming back
along the Chiba coast,
95
00:14:31,237 --> 00:14:35,970
I thought of Shonagon's list of signs
one need only name to quicken the heart.
96
00:14:36,175 --> 00:14:37,802
Only name.
97
00:14:38,010 --> 00:14:41,002
To us, a sun is not quite a sun
unless it is 'radiant, '
98
00:14:41,213 --> 00:14:43,078
a spring not quite a spring
unless it's 'crystal-clear. '
99
00:14:43,282 --> 00:14:45,216
Here, interjecting adjectives
100
00:14:45,417 --> 00:14:48,477
would be as rude
as leaving price tags on purchases.
101
00:14:49,722 --> 00:14:52,247
Japanese poetry never modifies.
102
00:14:52,458 --> 00:14:54,619
There is a way
of saying boat, rock, mist,
103
00:14:54,827 --> 00:14:56,886
frog, crow, hail,
104
00:14:57,096 --> 00:15:00,554
heron, chrysanthemum
that includes them all.
105
00:15:00,866 --> 00:15:03,858
Newspapers recently chronicled
the story of a man from Nagoya.
106
00:15:04,470 --> 00:15:06,461
The woman he loved
died last year,
107
00:15:06,672 --> 00:15:09,800
and he'd drowned himself in work,
Japanese-style, like a madman.
108
00:15:10,009 --> 00:15:14,002
It seems he even made
an important discovery in electronics.
109
00:15:14,213 --> 00:15:17,774
And then, in the month of May,
he killed himself.
110
00:15:17,983 --> 00:15:22,044
They say he couldn't bear
to hear the word 'spring. "'
111
00:15:58,757 --> 00:16:01,658
He described
his reunion with Tokyo.
112
00:16:02,761 --> 00:16:04,991
"Like a cat home from vacation
113
00:16:05,197 --> 00:16:07,597
who immediately starts
to inspect familiar places. "
114
00:16:08,167 --> 00:16:10,431
He ran to see
if all was where it should be.
115
00:16:10,636 --> 00:16:13,730
The Ginza owl,
the Shimbashi locomotive,
116
00:16:13,939 --> 00:16:16,601
the Temple of the Fox
above the Mitsukoshi department store,
117
00:16:16,809 --> 00:16:19,607
which he found invaded
by little girls and rock singers.
118
00:16:19,812 --> 00:16:23,009
He learned it was now
little girls who made and unmade stars,
119
00:16:23,215 --> 00:16:26,013
and that producers
trembled before them.
120
00:16:26,218 --> 00:16:29,585
He was told that a disfigured woman
took off her mask in front of passers-by
121
00:16:29,788 --> 00:16:32,848
and scratched them
if they didn't find her beautiful.
122
00:16:33,058 --> 00:16:34,548
Everything interested him.
123
00:16:34,760 --> 00:16:38,787
He who didn't give a damn
about soccer stars or racetrack winners
124
00:16:38,998 --> 00:16:43,594
asked feverishly about Chiyonofuji's
ranking in the last sumo tournament.
125
00:16:43,802 --> 00:16:47,169
He asked for news
of the imperial family, the crown prince,
126
00:16:47,373 --> 00:16:51,002
or Tokyo's oldest mobster,
who appears regularly on television
127
00:16:51,210 --> 00:16:52,905
to teach goodness to children.
128
00:16:53,112 --> 00:16:55,580
The simple joys he'd never known -
129
00:16:55,781 --> 00:16:58,841
returning to one's native land
and family home -
130
00:16:59,051 --> 00:17:02,418
he found among the city's
12 million anonymous residents.
131
00:18:11,757 --> 00:18:13,452
He wrote...
132
00:18:13,659 --> 00:18:16,753
"Tokyo is crisscrossed by trains,
knit together by electric wires.
133
00:18:16,962 --> 00:18:19,055
She shows her veins.
134
00:18:19,631 --> 00:18:21,861
They say that TV
is making her people illiterate,
135
00:18:22,067 --> 00:18:24,763
but I've never seen
so many people reading in the streets.
136
00:18:24,970 --> 00:18:26,631
Perhaps they only read
in the street,
137
00:18:26,839 --> 00:18:30,172
or perhaps they're just pretending
to read, these yellow men.
138
00:18:30,409 --> 00:18:34,038
I make my appointments at Kinokuniya,
the big bookshop in Shinjuku.
139
00:18:34,480 --> 00:18:36,448
The graphic genius
that allowed the Japanese
140
00:18:36,648 --> 00:18:38,707
to invent Cinemascope
ten centuries before the movies
141
00:18:38,917 --> 00:18:41,715
compensates a bit for the sad fate
of the comic-strip heroines,
142
00:18:41,920 --> 00:18:45,378
victims of heartless writers
and a castrating censorship.
143
00:18:45,591 --> 00:18:48,560
Sometimes they escape,
and you find them again on the walls.
144
00:18:49,027 --> 00:18:51,791
The entire city
is a comic strip.
145
00:19:00,739 --> 00:19:02,764
It's planet Mongo.
146
00:19:04,276 --> 00:19:05,675
One can't miss the statuary,
147
00:19:05,878 --> 00:19:08,108
from plasticized baroque
to Stalin-sensual,
148
00:19:08,814 --> 00:19:11,806
and the giant faces
with their imposing stares.
149
00:19:12,284 --> 00:19:17,153
Pictures bigger than people,
voyeurizing the voyeurs.
150
00:19:25,564 --> 00:19:30,001
At nightfall, the megalopolis
breaks down into villages.
151
00:19:30,202 --> 00:19:34,070
With its country cemeteries in the shadow
of banks, its stations and temples,
152
00:19:34,273 --> 00:19:37,800
each district of Tokyo once again
becomes a tidy, ingenuous little town,
153
00:19:38,010 --> 00:19:40,444
nestled among the skyscrapers. "
154
00:19:53,525 --> 00:19:56,119
The small bar in Shinjuku
reminded him of that Indian flute
155
00:19:56,328 --> 00:19:59,092
whose sound can only be heard
by the person playing it.
156
00:19:59,298 --> 00:20:02,233
He might have cried out - as in
a Godard film or a Shakespeare play -
157
00:20:02,501 --> 00:20:05,026
"Where is that music
coming from?"
158
00:20:06,572 --> 00:20:10,303
Later he told me he'd eaten
at the restaurant in Nishi Nippori
159
00:20:10,509 --> 00:20:13,808
where Mr. Yamada practices
the difficult art of "action cooking."
160
00:20:19,785 --> 00:20:22,618
He said that by carefully watching
Mr. Yamada's gestures
161
00:20:22,821 --> 00:20:24,789
and his way
of mixing the ingredients,
162
00:20:24,990 --> 00:20:27,618
one could meditate profitably
on fundamental concepts
163
00:20:27,826 --> 00:20:31,057
common to painting,
philosophy and martial arts.
164
00:20:31,263 --> 00:20:36,792
He claimed that Mr. Yamada possessed,
in his impressively humble way,
165
00:20:37,002 --> 00:20:38,367
the essence of style,
166
00:20:38,570 --> 00:20:42,301
and that it therefore fell to him
to use his invisible brush
167
00:20:42,574 --> 00:20:47,807
to write upon this first day in Tokyo
the words "The End."
168
00:20:52,217 --> 00:20:55,152
"I spent the day in front of my TV,
that box of memories.
169
00:20:55,354 --> 00:20:57,788
I was in Nara
with the sacred deer.
170
00:20:57,990 --> 00:20:59,753
I was taking a picture,
171
00:20:59,958 --> 00:21:01,755
unaware that in the 15th century
Basho had written...
172
00:21:02,961 --> 00:21:07,227
'The willow sees
the heron's image upside down. '
173
00:21:17,576 --> 00:21:20,101
Commercials
become a kind of haiku
174
00:21:20,312 --> 00:21:22,610
to the eye used
to Western atrocities in the genre.
175
00:21:22,814 --> 00:21:25,942
Not understanding obviously
adds to the pleasure.
176
00:21:26,151 --> 00:21:28,085
For one slightly
hallucinatory moment,
177
00:21:28,287 --> 00:21:31,256
I had the impression
that I understood Japanese,
178
00:21:31,890 --> 00:21:35,451
but it was a cultural program
about Gérard de Nerval. "
179
00:21:35,661 --> 00:21:38,960
Memories of a visit to the tomb
of Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
180
00:21:39,164 --> 00:21:41,530
a simple and moving
monument in stone
181
00:21:41,733 --> 00:21:44,497
guarded by tall trees.
182
00:22:04,589 --> 00:22:06,853
"8.40. Cambodia.
183
00:22:07,059 --> 00:22:08,458
From Rousseau
to the Khmer Rouge -
184
00:22:08,660 --> 00:22:10,958
coincidence,
or a sense of history?
185
00:22:11,363 --> 00:22:13,092
In Apocalypse Now,
186
00:22:13,298 --> 00:22:15,630
Brando uttered a few definitive -
and incommunicable -
187
00:22:15,834 --> 00:22:18,200
sentences on the subject.
188
00:22:18,403 --> 00:22:20,633
'Horror has a face and a name.
189
00:22:20,839 --> 00:22:22,898
You must make a friend of horror. '
190
00:22:29,981 --> 00:22:32,176
To cast out the horror
that has a name and a face,
191
00:22:32,384 --> 00:22:34,978
you must give it another name
and another face.
192
00:22:35,187 --> 00:22:39,123
Japanese horror movies have
the sly beauty of certain corpses.
193
00:22:39,324 --> 00:22:41,724
One is sometimes stunned
by so much cruelty.
194
00:22:41,927 --> 00:22:46,193
One seeks its source in Asian people's
long familiarity with suffering
195
00:22:46,398 --> 00:22:48,593
that requires
that even pain be ornate.
196
00:22:48,800 --> 00:22:50,791
And then comes the reward.
197
00:22:51,002 --> 00:22:54,438
The monsters are vanquished
and Natsume Masako arises.
198
00:22:54,639 --> 00:22:57,665
Absolute beauty too
has a name and a face.
199
00:23:09,654 --> 00:23:12,054
But the more you watch
Japanese television,
200
00:23:12,257 --> 00:23:14,817
the more you feel
it's watching you.
201
00:24:02,941 --> 00:24:05,671
Even television newscasts
bear witness to the fact
202
00:24:05,877 --> 00:24:08,368
that the eye's magical function
is at the center of all things.
203
00:24:08,580 --> 00:24:10,343
It's election time.
204
00:24:10,549 --> 00:24:12,608
Winning candidates black out
205
00:24:12,818 --> 00:24:16,310
the empty eye of Daruma,
the spirit of luck,
206
00:24:16,555 --> 00:24:20,321
while losing candidates, sad but dignified,
carry off their one-eyed Daruma.
207
00:24:23,428 --> 00:24:26,056
The most indecipherable images
are those of Europe.
208
00:24:26,264 --> 00:24:30,633
I watch the images of a film
whose soundtrack will be added later.
209
00:24:30,836 --> 00:24:33,464
It took me six months
for Poland.
210
00:24:37,375 --> 00:24:40,344
But I have no difficulty
with the local earthquakes,
211
00:24:40,545 --> 00:24:44,845
though I must admit last night's quake
helped me greatly to grasp the problem.
212
00:24:45,417 --> 00:24:47,578
Poetry is born of insecurity.
213
00:24:48,453 --> 00:24:51,889
Wandering Jews,
quaking Japanese.
214
00:24:54,192 --> 00:24:57,559
Living on a rug that jesting nature is
ever ready to pull out from under them,
215
00:24:57,762 --> 00:25:00,162
they've learned to inhabit
a world of appearances,
216
00:25:00,365 --> 00:25:02,560
fragile, fleeting, revocable,
217
00:25:02,767 --> 00:25:04,667
of trains that fly
from planet to planet,
218
00:25:04,870 --> 00:25:07,862
of samurai fighting
in an immutable past.
219
00:25:08,073 --> 00:25:11,042
It's called
the impermanence of things.
220
00:25:39,971 --> 00:25:43,031
I watched it all,
even the evening shows,
221
00:25:43,241 --> 00:25:44,606
the so-called adult shows.
222
00:25:44,809 --> 00:25:48,438
The same hypocrisy as in the comic strips,
but this is a coded hypocrisy.
223
00:25:48,647 --> 00:25:52,413
Censorship is not the mutilation
of the show. It is the show.
224
00:25:52,617 --> 00:25:54,107
The code is the message.
225
00:25:54,319 --> 00:25:59,086
It points to the absolute by hiding it,
like religions have always done. "
226
00:26:12,804 --> 00:26:14,772
That year, a new face appeared
227
00:26:14,973 --> 00:26:18,636
among the great faces adorning
the streets of Tokyo. The face of the pope.
228
00:26:18,843 --> 00:26:20,811
Treasures that had never
left the Vatican
229
00:26:21,012 --> 00:26:24,106
were displayed on the seventh floor
of the Sogo department store.
230
00:26:24,749 --> 00:26:26,478
He wrote...
231
00:26:26,851 --> 00:26:30,719
"It's curiosity, of course, but also
a hint of industrial espionage.
232
00:26:31,623 --> 00:26:33,591
I imagine them bringing out
in two years
233
00:26:33,792 --> 00:26:36,818
a more efficient and less expensive
version of Catholicism.
234
00:26:38,029 --> 00:26:40,293
But there's also the fascination
associated with the sacred,
235
00:26:40,498 --> 00:26:42,659
even when it's someone else's.
236
00:27:23,975 --> 00:27:29,208
So when will French department stores
exhibit relics sacred to the Japanese
237
00:27:29,414 --> 00:27:32,542
such as can be seen at Jozankei,
on the island of Hokkaido?
238
00:27:32,817 --> 00:27:37,186
At first, one smiles at this combination
museum, chapel and sex shop.
239
00:27:37,389 --> 00:27:41,086
As always in Japan, one admires how
the walls between realms are so thin
240
00:27:41,292 --> 00:27:43,817
that one can in the same breath
contemplate a statue,
241
00:27:44,029 --> 00:27:45,758
buy an inflatable doll
242
00:27:45,964 --> 00:27:48,432
and give the goddess of fertility
the small offering
243
00:27:48,633 --> 00:27:50,897
that always accompanies
her displays,
244
00:27:51,102 --> 00:27:54,629
displays whose frankness would render
television's stratagems incomprehensible
245
00:27:54,906 --> 00:28:00,401
but for the fact that sex organs may
only be shown severed from the body.
246
00:28:12,791 --> 00:28:14,952
One would like to
believe in a world before the fall,
247
00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:17,219
inaccessible to the complications
of a puritanism
248
00:28:17,429 --> 00:28:20,421
whose phony shadow was imposed
on it by American occupation,
249
00:28:20,732 --> 00:28:23,701
where people who gather laughing
around the votive fountain,
250
00:28:23,902 --> 00:28:26,132
the woman who touches it
with a friendly gesture,
251
00:28:26,337 --> 00:28:29,272
share in the same
cosmic innocence.
252
00:28:29,841 --> 00:28:32,571
The second part of the museum,
with its pairs of coupling animals,
253
00:28:32,777 --> 00:28:35,541
would then be the earthly paradise
as we've always dreamed of it.
254
00:28:35,747 --> 00:28:37,044
Not so sure.
255
00:28:37,248 --> 00:28:40,615
Animal innocence may be a trick
for getting around censorship,
256
00:28:41,119 --> 00:28:44,145
but perhaps also the mirror
of an impossible reconciliation,
257
00:28:44,355 --> 00:28:49,292
and even without original sin, this
earthly paradise may be a paradise lost.
258
00:28:51,629 --> 00:28:54,257
In the glossy splendor
of the gentle animals of Jozankei,
259
00:28:54,466 --> 00:28:57,435
I read the fundamental rift
of Japanese society,
260
00:28:57,635 --> 00:29:00,297
the rift that separates
men from women.
261
00:29:00,505 --> 00:29:03,235
In life it seems to manifest
in just two ways.
262
00:29:03,441 --> 00:29:08,037
Violent slaughter, or a discreet
melancholy resembling the Shonagon's,
263
00:29:08,246 --> 00:29:12,512
which the Japanese express
in a single - and untranslatable - word.
264
00:29:12,717 --> 00:29:14,582
Bringing man down
to the level of the beasts
265
00:29:14,786 --> 00:29:16,811
against which
the church fathers inveighed
266
00:29:17,021 --> 00:29:20,388
becomes here the challenge of the beasts
to the 'poignancy of things, '
267
00:29:20,592 --> 00:29:22,890
to a melancholy whose tone
I can convey
268
00:29:23,094 --> 00:29:26,063
by copying a few lines
from Samura Koichi.
269
00:29:27,832 --> 00:29:30,767
'Who said that time
heals all wounds?
270
00:29:31,970 --> 00:29:35,963
Better to say that time heals
everything except wounds.
271
00:29:36,241 --> 00:29:39,904
With time, the hurt of separation
loses its real limits.
272
00:29:40,111 --> 00:29:43,444
With time, the desired body
will soon disappear,
273
00:29:43,648 --> 00:29:46,617
and if the desiring body has already
ceased to exist for the other,
274
00:29:46,818 --> 00:29:50,652
then what remains
is a disembodied wound. "'
275
00:29:58,396 --> 00:30:00,455
He wrote
that the Japanese secret -
276
00:30:00,665 --> 00:30:03,759
what Levi-Strauss called
the poignancy of things -
277
00:30:03,968 --> 00:30:06,493
implied the faculty
of communing with things,
278
00:30:06,704 --> 00:30:09,969
of entering into them,
of being them for a moment.
279
00:30:10,375 --> 00:30:12,969
It's only natural that, in their turn,
they should be like us -
280
00:30:13,178 --> 00:30:14,907
perishable and immortal.
281
00:30:22,220 --> 00:30:25,451
He wrote, "Animism is
a familiar notion in Africa.
282
00:30:25,657 --> 00:30:27,682
It's less often applied to Japan.
283
00:30:27,892 --> 00:30:29,792
What then shall we call
this diffuse belief
284
00:30:29,994 --> 00:30:33,953
according to which every fragment
of creation has its invisible counterpart?
285
00:30:34,499 --> 00:30:36,990
Building a factory or skyscraper
286
00:30:37,202 --> 00:30:40,365
begins with a ceremony
to appease the god who owns the land.
287
00:30:40,572 --> 00:30:44,508
There's a ceremony for brushes,
abacuses, even rusty needles.
288
00:30:44,709 --> 00:30:49,408
There's one on September 25th for
the repose of the soul of broken dolls.
289
00:30:49,614 --> 00:30:52,515
The dolls are piled up
in the Temple of Kiyomizu -
290
00:30:52,717 --> 00:30:57,245
which is consecrated to Kannon,
the goddess of compassion -
291
00:30:57,455 --> 00:30:59,719
and then burned in public.
292
00:31:35,460 --> 00:31:37,325
I watched the participants.
293
00:31:37,762 --> 00:31:39,889
I think the people who saw off
the kamikaze pilots
294
00:31:40,098 --> 00:31:42,760
had the same look on their faces. "
295
00:32:15,500 --> 00:32:17,627
He wrote that the pictures
of Guinea-Bissau
296
00:32:17,835 --> 00:32:20,235
ought to be accompanied
by music from the Cape Verde Islands.
297
00:32:20,438 --> 00:32:23,407
That would be our contribution
to the unity dreamed of by Amilcar Cabral.
298
00:32:28,246 --> 00:32:32,376
"Why should a country so small
and so poor interest the world?
299
00:32:32,583 --> 00:32:34,676
They did what they could.
300
00:32:34,886 --> 00:32:38,287
They chased Portugal out,
so traumatizing its army
301
00:32:38,489 --> 00:32:40,923
that it moved to overthrow
its own dictatorship
302
00:32:41,125 --> 00:32:43,685
and led one briefly to believe
in a new revolution in Europe.
303
00:32:43,895 --> 00:32:45,556
Who remembers all that?
304
00:32:45,763 --> 00:32:48,630
History throws its empty bottles
out the window.
305
00:32:52,637 --> 00:32:55,037
This morning I was
on the dock at Pidjiguiti,
306
00:32:55,239 --> 00:32:59,699
where everything began in 1959, when the
first victims of the struggle were killed.
307
00:32:59,944 --> 00:33:03,072
It may be as difficult
to recognize Africa in this leaden fog
308
00:33:03,281 --> 00:33:05,272
as it is to recognize the struggle
309
00:33:05,483 --> 00:33:07,747
in the rather dull activity
of tropical longshoremen.
310
00:33:08,019 --> 00:33:09,953
Rumor has it
that every third-world leader
311
00:33:10,154 --> 00:33:12,486
coined the same phrase
the morning after independence.
312
00:33:12,690 --> 00:33:15,181
'Now the real problems begin. '
313
00:33:15,526 --> 00:33:18,723
Cabral never got a chance to say it.
He was assassinated first.
314
00:33:18,930 --> 00:33:22,297
But the problems began,
and went on, and are still going on.
315
00:33:22,500 --> 00:33:25,230
Rather unexciting problems
for revolutionary romanticism.
316
00:33:25,436 --> 00:33:27,904
To work, to produce,
to distribute,
317
00:33:28,106 --> 00:33:30,370
to overcome postwar exhaustion
318
00:33:30,575 --> 00:33:33,169
and the temptations
of power and privilege.
319
00:33:33,378 --> 00:33:37,508
But after all, history's only bitter
to those who expect a sugar coating.
320
00:33:54,999 --> 00:33:58,457
My personal problem
was more specific.
321
00:33:58,669 --> 00:34:00,603
How to film
the ladies of Bissau?
322
00:34:00,805 --> 00:34:03,831
Apparently, the eye's magical function
was working against me there.
323
00:34:04,442 --> 00:34:06,603
In the marketplaces
of Bissau and Cape Verde,
324
00:34:06,811 --> 00:34:08,938
I again encountered
those egalitarian stares
325
00:34:09,147 --> 00:34:12,810
and this sequence of glances
that bordered on seduction.
326
00:34:13,684 --> 00:34:15,447
I see her.
327
00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:18,117
She sees me.
328
00:34:18,356 --> 00:34:20,586
She knows that I see her.
329
00:34:23,294 --> 00:34:24,727
She glances my way,
330
00:34:24,929 --> 00:34:28,456
but furtively, as if I'm not
really the object of her gaze.
331
00:34:28,666 --> 00:34:31,100
Finally, the direct gaze
332
00:34:32,403 --> 00:34:35,930
lasting 1/24th of a second,
the length of a film frame.
333
00:34:41,746 --> 00:34:45,512
All women have a built-in kernel
of indestructibility,
334
00:34:45,750 --> 00:34:48,810
and men's task has always been
to keep them from realizing it
335
00:34:49,020 --> 00:34:50,578
for as long as possible.
336
00:34:50,788 --> 00:34:55,157
African men are just as good
at this task as others,
337
00:34:55,359 --> 00:34:59,853
but after a close look at African women,
I wouldn't necessarily bet on the men. "
338
00:36:51,475 --> 00:36:54,069
He told me the story
of Hachiko the dog.
339
00:36:54,278 --> 00:36:56,872
"A dog waited for his master
every day at the station.
340
00:36:57,081 --> 00:36:59,879
The master died,
but the dog didn't know it,
341
00:37:00,084 --> 00:37:02,746
and he continued to wait,
all his life.
342
00:37:02,954 --> 00:37:05,616
People were moved
and brought him food.
343
00:37:05,823 --> 00:37:10,260
They still place sushi and rice cakes
before the statue erected in his honor
344
00:37:10,461 --> 00:37:13,259
so that the faithful soul of Hachiko
will never go hungry.
345
00:37:19,270 --> 00:37:23,206
Tokyo is full of these small legends
and animal intercessors.
346
00:37:23,674 --> 00:37:27,576
The Mitsukoshi lion stands guard over
what was once the empire of Mr. Okada,
347
00:37:27,778 --> 00:37:29,803
a great collector
of French paintings,
348
00:37:30,014 --> 00:37:31,879
the man who rented
the Château of Versailles
349
00:37:32,083 --> 00:37:34,517
to celebrate the 100th anniversary
of his department stores.
350
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:36,949
In the computer section
of one such store,
351
00:37:37,154 --> 00:37:39,179
I've seen young Japanese
exercising their brain muscles
352
00:37:39,390 --> 00:37:41,881
like young Athenians
at the palestra.
353
00:37:43,127 --> 00:37:45,095
They have a war to win.
354
00:37:45,296 --> 00:37:48,493
History books of the future will perhaps
rank the battle of the integrated circuit
355
00:37:48,699 --> 00:37:50,826
with the battles of Salamis
or Agincourt.
356
00:37:54,839 --> 00:37:58,741
But they honor the unfortunate
adversary by leaving other fields to him.
357
00:37:58,943 --> 00:38:02,379
Men's fashions this season are placed
under the sign of John Kennedy. "
358
00:38:41,619 --> 00:38:44,213
Like an old votive turtle
stationed in the corner of a field,
359
00:38:44,422 --> 00:38:48,620
Mr. Akao, president
of the Japanese Patriotic Party,
360
00:38:48,826 --> 00:38:53,456
rails from his rolling balcony
against the international communist plot.
361
00:38:54,265 --> 00:38:55,789
He wrote...
362
00:38:57,435 --> 00:39:00,063
"The extreme right's vans,
with their flags and megaphones,
363
00:39:00,271 --> 00:39:02,000
are part of the Tokyo landscape.
364
00:39:02,206 --> 00:39:04,868
Mr. Akao is their focal point.
365
00:39:05,076 --> 00:39:07,670
I think he'll have his own statue,
like Hachiko the dog,
366
00:39:07,878 --> 00:39:12,577
at this intersection that he leaves
only to go prophesy on the battlefields.
367
00:39:18,322 --> 00:39:21,883
He was at Narita in the '60s.
368
00:39:22,093 --> 00:39:25,085
Peasants fought an airport
to be built on their land,
369
00:39:25,296 --> 00:39:29,289
with Mr. Akao denouncing Moscow's
hand in everything that moved.
370
00:39:30,801 --> 00:39:33,702
Yurakucho is
Tokyo's political arena.
371
00:39:33,904 --> 00:39:36,668
I once saw a monk there
pray for peace in Vietnam.
372
00:39:38,242 --> 00:39:40,176
Today, young right-wing activists
373
00:39:40,378 --> 00:39:43,870
protest the annexation
of the northern islands by the Russians.
374
00:39:44,515 --> 00:39:47,006
Sometimes they're told that
Japan's commercial relations
375
00:39:47,218 --> 00:39:49,152
with the abominable occupier
to the north
376
00:39:49,353 --> 00:39:51,480
are a thousand times better
than with the American ally,
377
00:39:51,689 --> 00:39:54,419
who's always whining
about economic aggression.
378
00:39:54,625 --> 00:39:56,616
Nothing is simple.
379
00:40:01,999 --> 00:40:04,934
On the other sidewalk,
the left has the floor.
380
00:40:05,469 --> 00:40:08,199
Korean Catholic opposition
leader Kim Dae Jung,
381
00:40:08,406 --> 00:40:11,307
kidnapped in Tokyo in '73
by the South Korean Gestapo,
382
00:40:11,842 --> 00:40:14,367
is threatened
with a death sentence.
383
00:40:14,578 --> 00:40:16,546
A group has begun
a hunger strike.
384
00:40:16,747 --> 00:40:19,944
Some very young activists
gather signatures in his support.
385
00:41:03,227 --> 00:41:07,687
I returned to Narita for the birthday
of one of the victims of the struggle.
386
00:41:08,365 --> 00:41:10,196
The demonstration was unreal.
387
00:41:10,401 --> 00:41:12,562
I felt like I was in Brigadoon,
388
00:41:12,770 --> 00:41:15,671
like I'd woken up ten years later
amid the same actors,
389
00:41:15,873 --> 00:41:19,673
the same blue-suited police
and helmeted adolescents,
390
00:41:19,877 --> 00:41:22,175
the same slogan,
the same banners,
391
00:41:23,280 --> 00:41:26,306
and the same goal.
To fight the airport.
392
00:41:26,517 --> 00:41:30,317
Just one thing has been added.
The airport itself.
393
00:41:30,521 --> 00:41:32,785
But its single runway
hemmed in by barbed wire
394
00:41:32,990 --> 00:41:35,481
looks more besieged
than victorious.
395
00:41:52,309 --> 00:41:56,837
My pal Hayao Yamaneko
has found a solution.
396
00:41:57,047 --> 00:42:00,608
If the images of the present don't change,
change the images of the past.
397
00:42:01,218 --> 00:42:04,813
He showed me clashes of the '60s
run through his synthesizer.
398
00:42:05,556 --> 00:42:08,582
'Less deceptive pictures, 'he says,
with the conviction of a fanatic,
399
00:42:08,792 --> 00:42:10,885
than those you see on television. '
400
00:42:11,095 --> 00:42:14,087
At least they proclaim themselves
to be what they are. Images -
401
00:42:14,298 --> 00:42:18,826
not the portable and compact form
of an already inaccessible reality.
402
00:42:21,171 --> 00:42:26,404
Hayao calls his machine's world
'the Zone, 'in an homage to Tarkovsky.
403
00:43:15,859 --> 00:43:19,818
What Narita brought back to me
like a shattered hologram
404
00:43:20,030 --> 00:43:22,191
was a fragment
of the '60s generation.
405
00:43:24,568 --> 00:43:28,004
If to love without illusions is still
to love, I can say that I loved it.
406
00:43:28,505 --> 00:43:30,302
It was a generation
that often exasperated me,
407
00:43:30,507 --> 00:43:33,271
for I didn't share its utopian goal
of uniting in a common struggle
408
00:43:33,477 --> 00:43:37,345
those who revolt against poverty
and those who revolt against wealth,
409
00:43:37,548 --> 00:43:42,485
but it let out a primordial scream that
better-adjusted voices no longer could.
410
00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:53,186
I met peasants there who'd come
to know themselves through the struggle.
411
00:43:53,397 --> 00:43:55,365
In concrete terms, it had failed.
412
00:43:55,566 --> 00:43:58,034
Yet all they had won
in their understanding of the world
413
00:43:58,235 --> 00:44:00,100
and of themselves
414
00:44:00,304 --> 00:44:03,432
could only have been won
through the struggle.
415
00:44:04,108 --> 00:44:07,839
As for the students, some massacred
each other in the mountains
416
00:44:08,045 --> 00:44:09,945
in the name
of revolutionary purity,
417
00:44:10,147 --> 00:44:12,809
while others had studied capitalism
so thoroughly to fight it
418
00:44:13,117 --> 00:44:15,915
that they now provide it
with its best executives.
419
00:44:16,120 --> 00:44:19,214
Like everywhere else, the movement
had its posturers and its careerists -
420
00:44:19,423 --> 00:44:22,688
including those who made
a career of martyrdom -
421
00:44:22,893 --> 00:44:25,521
but it carried with it all those
who said, like Che Guevara,
422
00:44:25,729 --> 00:44:29,688
that they 'trembled with indignation
at every injustice committed in the world. '
423
00:44:30,567 --> 00:44:33,297
They wanted to give
a political meaning to their generosity,
424
00:44:33,504 --> 00:44:36,769
and their generosity
has outlasted their politics.
425
00:44:36,974 --> 00:44:42,412
That's why I will never allow it to be
said that youth is wasted on the young. "
426
00:45:00,030 --> 00:45:02,555
"The youth who gather
every weekend at Shinjuku
427
00:45:02,766 --> 00:45:05,860
obviously know they're not
on a launching pad toward real life,
428
00:45:06,070 --> 00:45:08,732
that they are life, to be eaten
on the spot, like fresh donuts.
429
00:45:10,774 --> 00:45:12,241
It's a very simple secret.
430
00:45:12,443 --> 00:45:15,810
The old try to hide it,
and not all the young know it.
431
00:45:16,013 --> 00:45:18,345
The 10-year-old girl
who tied her friend's hands
432
00:45:18,549 --> 00:45:20,744
and threw her
from the 13th floor
433
00:45:20,951 --> 00:45:24,148
for speaking badly of their class team
hadn't discovered it yet.
434
00:45:24,354 --> 00:45:27,289
Parents who demand
more special telephone lines
435
00:45:27,491 --> 00:45:29,220
to prevent children's suicides
436
00:45:29,426 --> 00:45:33,157
find out a little late
that they kept the secret too well.
437
00:45:34,398 --> 00:45:37,959
Rock is an international language
for spreading the secret.
438
00:45:38,635 --> 00:45:41,365
Another is peculiar to Tokyo.
439
00:45:49,480 --> 00:45:52,813
For the Takenoko,
20 is retiring age.
440
00:45:53,016 --> 00:45:54,643
They are baby Martians.
441
00:45:54,852 --> 00:45:58,219
I go see them dance
every Sunday in Yoyogi Park.
442
00:45:58,689 --> 00:46:02,819
They want people to look at them
but seem not to notice when they do.
443
00:46:03,026 --> 00:46:04,618
They live
in a parallel time stream.
444
00:46:04,828 --> 00:46:07,922
An invisible aquarium wall
separates them from their audience,
445
00:46:08,132 --> 00:46:10,100
and I can spend a whole afternoon
446
00:46:10,300 --> 00:46:14,964
watching a little Takenoko girl
learn the customs of her planet.
447
00:46:28,752 --> 00:46:30,879
Beyond that,
they wear dog tags,
448
00:46:31,088 --> 00:46:33,852
they obey a whistle,
the Mafia extorts money from them,
449
00:46:34,057 --> 00:46:36,355
and with the exception
of a single all-girl group,
450
00:46:36,560 --> 00:46:38,960
a boy is always in charge. "
451
00:47:37,221 --> 00:47:39,189
One day he writes to me,
452
00:47:39,389 --> 00:47:41,118
"Description of a dream.
453
00:47:41,325 --> 00:47:43,350
More and more,
my dreams are set
454
00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:45,323
in the department stores of Tokyo,
455
00:47:45,529 --> 00:47:47,929
the subterranean passages
that parallel the city above.
456
00:47:49,833 --> 00:47:53,530
A face appears, then disappears.
A trace is found, then lost.
457
00:47:53,737 --> 00:47:56,865
The folklore of dreams is so much intact
that the next day, when I'm awake,
458
00:47:57,074 --> 00:47:59,941
I realize that I continue to seek
in this basement labyrinth
459
00:48:00,143 --> 00:48:03,374
the presence concealed
the night before.
460
00:48:03,881 --> 00:48:06,281
I begin to wonder
if those dreams are really mine,
461
00:48:06,483 --> 00:48:10,442
or if they're part of a totality,
a gigantic collective dream,
462
00:48:10,654 --> 00:48:13,782
of which the entire city
may be the projection.
463
00:48:14,124 --> 00:48:17,059
It might suffice to pick up
any of the telephones lying around
464
00:48:17,261 --> 00:48:18,956
to hear a familiar voice
465
00:48:19,696 --> 00:48:22,631
or the beating of a heart -
466
00:48:23,100 --> 00:48:25,762
Sei Shonagon's, for example.
467
00:48:26,336 --> 00:48:28,304
All the underground passages
lead to train stations.
468
00:48:28,505 --> 00:48:31,633
The same companies own the stores
and the railroads that bear their name -
469
00:48:31,842 --> 00:48:34,936
Keio, Odakyu,
all those names of ports.
470
00:48:35,145 --> 00:48:38,273
The train inhabited by sleeping people
assembles all the fragments of dreams
471
00:48:38,482 --> 00:48:41,815
and makes a single film of them,
the ultimate film.
472
00:48:42,052 --> 00:48:45,180
The tickets from the automatic dispenser
grant admission to the show. "
473
00:53:50,994 --> 00:53:54,521
He told me of the January light
on the stations' stairways.
474
00:53:55,098 --> 00:53:58,329
He said the city ought to be
deciphered like a musical score.
475
00:53:59,803 --> 00:54:04,263
One could get lost in the great orchestral
masses and the accumulation of details,
476
00:54:04,474 --> 00:54:06,635
but that yielded
the cheapest image of Tokyo.
477
00:54:06,843 --> 00:54:09,505
Overcrowded,
megalomaniac, inhuman.
478
00:54:09,713 --> 00:54:12,147
He thought he saw
more subtle cycles there.
479
00:54:12,349 --> 00:54:15,011
Rhythms, clusters of faces
glimpsed in passing,
480
00:54:15,218 --> 00:54:18,881
as different and precise
as groups of instruments.
481
00:54:19,322 --> 00:54:22,291
Sometimes the musical comparison
coincided with plain reality.
482
00:54:22,492 --> 00:54:26,326
The Sony stairway in the Ginza
was itself a musical instrument,
483
00:54:26,529 --> 00:54:28,759
each step a note.
484
00:54:28,965 --> 00:54:31,763
It all fit together like voices
in a complicated fugue,
485
00:54:31,968 --> 00:54:34,937
but it was enough to seize
one of them and hang on to it.
486
00:54:35,138 --> 00:54:37,629
The television screens,
for example.
487
00:54:37,841 --> 00:54:39,638
All by themselves
they created an itinerary
488
00:54:39,843 --> 00:54:42,778
that sometimes
took unexpected turns.
489
00:54:42,979 --> 00:54:44,446
It was sumo season,
490
00:54:44,648 --> 00:54:47,981
and the fans watching the fights
in the very chic Ginza showrooms
491
00:54:48,184 --> 00:54:50,846
were the poorest
of the Tokyo poor,
492
00:54:51,054 --> 00:54:53,545
so poor that they didn't have
even a TVset.
493
00:54:53,757 --> 00:54:56,658
He saw them come,
these lost souls of Namidabashi
494
00:54:56,860 --> 00:54:59,954
with whom he'd drunk sake
one sunny dawn.
495
00:55:00,330 --> 00:55:03,163
How many seasons ago
was that now?
496
00:56:33,656 --> 00:56:35,590
He wrote me...
497
00:56:36,826 --> 00:56:39,124
"Even in the stalls
selling spare electronic parts
498
00:56:39,329 --> 00:56:42,025
that some hipsters
use for jewelry,
499
00:56:42,232 --> 00:56:45,360
there is, in Tokyo's musical score,
a particular staff
500
00:56:45,568 --> 00:56:49,026
whose rarity in Europe condemns me
to a real acoustic exile.
501
00:56:49,239 --> 00:56:51,833
The music of video games.
502
00:56:52,342 --> 00:56:54,401
They're built into tables.
503
00:56:54,611 --> 00:56:57,512
You can drink and have lunch
and go on playing.
504
00:56:57,781 --> 00:56:59,681
The arcades open onto the street,
505
00:56:59,883 --> 00:57:02,477
where you can listen
and play from memory.
506
00:57:31,247 --> 00:57:33,715
I witnessed the birth
of these games in Japan.
507
00:57:33,917 --> 00:57:37,717
I met them again later all over the world,
but one detail was different.
508
00:57:37,921 --> 00:57:39,684
At first it was the familiar game,
509
00:57:39,889 --> 00:57:43,381
a politically incorrect battering
aimed at killing off creatures
510
00:57:43,593 --> 00:57:48,292
that were either prairie dogs
or baby seals - I can't be sure which.
511
00:57:49,365 --> 00:57:52,129
Here's the new Japanese variation.
512
00:57:52,335 --> 00:57:56,396
Instead of the critters, there are
vaguely human heads identified by labels.
513
00:57:56,606 --> 00:57:59,234
At the top,
the chairman of the board.
514
00:57:59,609 --> 00:58:02,703
In front of him,
the vice president and directors.
515
00:58:03,413 --> 00:58:06,576
In the front row, department heads
and personnel manager.
516
00:58:07,116 --> 00:58:09,084
The guy I filmed,
517
00:58:09,285 --> 00:58:11,913
who was smashing up
the hierarchy with enviable energy,
518
00:58:12,121 --> 00:58:14,612
confided that it was
not at all allegorical for him,
519
00:58:14,824 --> 00:58:17,384
that he was thinking
very specifically of his superiors.
520
00:58:17,594 --> 00:58:19,824
That's no doubt why
the 'personnel manager'
521
00:58:20,029 --> 00:58:24,227
has been clubbed so often and so hard
that it was taken out of commission
522
00:58:24,434 --> 00:58:28,063
and a baby seal
reinserted in its place.
523
00:58:32,942 --> 00:58:35,308
Hayao Yamaneko invents
video games with his machine.
524
00:58:36,813 --> 00:58:40,078
To please me, he puts in
my most beloved animals,
525
00:58:40,283 --> 00:58:42,376
the cat and the owl.
526
00:58:48,958 --> 00:58:51,017
He claims
that only electronics
527
00:58:51,227 --> 00:58:55,687
can deal with feeling,
memory and imagination.
528
00:58:57,066 --> 00:58:59,330
Mizoguchi's Arsène Lupin,
for example,
529
00:58:59,536 --> 00:59:02,437
or the no-less-imaginary
Burakumin.
530
00:59:03,139 --> 00:59:07,599
How to show a category
of Japanese that doesn't exist?
531
00:59:07,944 --> 00:59:12,313
Yes, I saw them in Osaka, for hire
by the day, sleeping on the ground.
532
00:59:12,515 --> 00:59:15,575
Since the Middle Ages they've been
doomed to grubby and thankless jobs,
533
00:59:15,785 --> 00:59:19,084
but since the Meiji era,
officially nothing sets them apart,
534
00:59:19,289 --> 00:59:23,658
and their real name - the eta -
is a taboo word, not to be pronounced.
535
00:59:24,994 --> 00:59:26,621
They are non-persons.
536
00:59:26,829 --> 00:59:29,662
How can they be shown,
except as non-images?
537
00:59:38,908 --> 00:59:43,277
Video games are the first stage in a plan
for machines to help the human race,
538
00:59:43,479 --> 00:59:46,039
the only plan that offers
a future for intelligence.
539
00:59:47,350 --> 00:59:50,513
For the moment, the unsurpassable
philosophy of our time
540
00:59:50,720 --> 00:59:52,688
is found in Pac-Man.
541
00:59:53,623 --> 00:59:56,251
I didn't know, while sacrificing
my 100-yen coins to him,
542
00:59:56,459 --> 00:59:58,654
that he was
to conquer the world.
543
00:59:58,861 --> 01:00:02,558
Perhaps because he's the most perfect
graphic metaphor of the human condition.
544
01:00:02,765 --> 01:00:04,665
He puts into true perspective
545
01:00:04,867 --> 01:00:07,131
the balance of power between
the individual and the environment,
546
01:00:07,337 --> 01:00:09,464
and he tells us soberly
that though there's honor
547
01:00:09,672 --> 01:00:11,936
in carrying out the greatest number
of victorious attacks,
548
01:00:12,141 --> 01:00:15,110
it never amounts
to anything in the end. "
549
01:00:58,054 --> 01:01:00,284
He was pleased to see
the same chrysanthemums
550
01:01:00,490 --> 01:01:03,186
at funerals
for both men and animals.
551
01:01:03,393 --> 01:01:06,385
He described the ceremony
held at the zoo in Ueno,
552
01:01:06,596 --> 01:01:08,791
in memory of animals
that had died during the year.
553
01:01:09,465 --> 01:01:10,932
"For two years now,
554
01:01:11,134 --> 01:01:14,365
a certain panda's death has rendered
this day even more sorrowful,
555
01:01:14,570 --> 01:01:16,470
a loss more irreparable,
say the newspapers,
556
01:01:16,673 --> 01:01:18,436
than the recent death
of the prime minister.
557
01:01:18,641 --> 01:01:20,438
Last year people really cried.
558
01:01:20,643 --> 01:01:22,406
Now they seem to be
getting used to it,
559
01:01:22,612 --> 01:01:24,580
accepting that each year
death takes a panda
560
01:01:24,781 --> 01:01:27,682
as dragons carry off young girls
in fairy tales.
561
01:01:30,019 --> 01:01:32,146
I've heard this sentence.
562
01:01:33,756 --> 01:01:35,587
'The partition separating
life from death
563
01:01:35,792 --> 01:01:39,421
doesn't seem as thick to us
as it does to a Westerner. '
564
01:01:41,731 --> 01:01:45,633
What I've read most often in the eyes
of people about to die is surprise.
565
01:01:46,369 --> 01:01:50,328
What I read right now in the eyes
of Japanese children is curiosity,
566
01:01:50,540 --> 01:01:54,499
as if they were trying
to see through the partition
567
01:01:54,711 --> 01:01:56,679
to understand an animal's death. "
568
01:03:19,996 --> 01:03:21,827
"I've returned from a country
569
01:03:22,031 --> 01:03:25,797
where death is not a partition to cross
but a road to follow.
570
01:03:26,435 --> 01:03:28,926
The Great Ancestor
of the Bijago archipelago
571
01:03:29,138 --> 01:03:31,072
has described for us
the itinerary of the dead,
572
01:03:31,274 --> 01:03:35,404
and how they move from island to island
according to a rigorous protocol,
573
01:03:35,611 --> 01:03:40,514
until they come to the last beach, where
they wait for the ship to the other world.
574
01:03:42,585 --> 01:03:46,077
If by accident one should meet them,
it is imperative not to recognize them.
575
01:03:49,559 --> 01:03:52,357
The Bijagos
are part of Guinea-Bissau.
576
01:03:52,562 --> 01:03:56,464
In an old film clip, Amilcar Cabral
waves good-bye to the shore.
577
01:03:56,666 --> 01:03:59,794
He's right.
He'll never see it again.
578
01:04:00,169 --> 01:04:02,603
Luis Cabral made
the same gesture 15 years later,
579
01:04:02,805 --> 01:04:05,330
on the canoe
that was bringing us back.
580
01:04:05,541 --> 01:04:09,978
Guinea had by that time become a nation,
and Luis was its president.
581
01:04:10,580 --> 01:04:13,481
All those who remember the war
remember him.
582
01:04:13,716 --> 01:04:18,346
Like his half brother Amilcar, he was of
mixed Guinean and Cape Verdian blood,
583
01:04:18,554 --> 01:04:22,923
and, like Amilcar, a founding member
of an unusual party, the PAIGC,
584
01:04:23,125 --> 01:04:25,821
which, by uniting the two colonized
countries in a single struggle,
585
01:04:26,028 --> 01:04:29,486
sought to herald
a federation of the two states.
586
01:04:30,466 --> 01:04:32,798
I've heard the stories
of former guerrilla fighters,
587
01:04:33,002 --> 01:04:36,870
who'd fought in conditions so inhuman
that they pitied the Portuguese soldiers
588
01:04:37,073 --> 01:04:39,268
for having to bear what
they themselves suffered.
589
01:04:39,475 --> 01:04:41,966
I heard that
and many more things
590
01:04:42,178 --> 01:04:45,978
that make one ashamed for having used
lightly, even if inadvertently,
591
01:04:46,182 --> 01:04:49,618
the word "guerrilla" to describe
a certain kind of filmmaking,
592
01:04:49,819 --> 01:04:52,185
a word linked at the time
to many theoretical debates
593
01:04:52,388 --> 01:04:54,948
as well as bloody defeats
on the ground.
594
01:04:55,157 --> 01:04:58,092
Amilcar Cabral was the only one
to lead a victorious guerrilla war,
595
01:04:58,294 --> 01:05:00,660
and not only in terms
of military conquests.
596
01:05:00,863 --> 01:05:03,263
He knew his people.
He'd studied them at length.
597
01:05:03,466 --> 01:05:06,993
He wanted every liberated region
to herald a different kind of society.
598
01:05:07,203 --> 01:05:09,797
The socialist countries send
weapons to arm the fighters.
599
01:05:10,006 --> 01:05:13,134
The social democracies
fill the people's stores.
600
01:05:13,342 --> 01:05:15,776
May the extreme Left
forgive history,
601
01:05:15,978 --> 01:05:20,779
but if the guerrillas are like fish
in water, it's a bit thanks to Sweden.
602
01:05:20,983 --> 01:05:24,475
Amilcar was not afraid of ambiguities.
He knew the traps.
603
01:05:24,687 --> 01:05:30,125
He wrote, "It's as though
we're facing a raging river,
604
01:05:30,326 --> 01:05:32,317
and those trying
to cross are drowning.
605
01:05:32,528 --> 01:05:35,224
But there's no choice.
They must get to the other side. "
606
01:05:54,550 --> 01:05:58,213
Now the scene moves to Cassaca,
February 17th, 1980,
607
01:05:58,421 --> 01:06:01,652
but to grasp it properly,
one must move forward in time.
608
01:06:01,857 --> 01:06:05,020
In a year, Luis Cabral,
the president, will be in prison,
609
01:06:05,227 --> 01:06:08,594
and the weeping man
he has just decorated, Major Nino,
610
01:06:08,798 --> 01:06:10,595
will have taken power.
611
01:06:10,967 --> 01:06:12,696
The party will have split.
612
01:06:12,902 --> 01:06:16,497
Guineans and Capeverdians
will be fighting over Amilcar's legacy.
613
01:06:16,706 --> 01:06:19,334
We'll see that beneath
this ceremony of promotions,
614
01:06:19,542 --> 01:06:22,534
seemingly perpetuating
the brotherhood of the struggle,
615
01:06:22,745 --> 01:06:25,612
there lay a pit
of post-victory bitterness,
616
01:06:25,815 --> 01:06:28,943
and that Nino's tears expressed
not an ex-warrior's emotion
617
01:06:29,151 --> 01:06:31,016
but the wounded pride of a hero
618
01:06:31,220 --> 01:06:34,121
slighted at not being raised
high enough above the rest.
619
01:06:36,359 --> 01:06:39,294
Beneath each of these faces
lies a memory,
620
01:06:39,495 --> 01:06:42,623
and where there was to be
one collective memory,
621
01:06:42,932 --> 01:06:46,527
there are a thousand memories of men
who parade their personal wounds
622
01:06:46,736 --> 01:06:48,533
in the great wound of history.
623
01:06:49,839 --> 01:06:53,900
In Portugal, swept up in turn
by the breaking wave of Bissau,
624
01:06:54,110 --> 01:06:57,910
Miguel Torga, who'd struggled all his
life against the dictatorship, wrote,
625
01:06:58,114 --> 01:07:01,572
'Every bit player
represents only himself.
626
01:07:01,984 --> 01:07:04,179
Instead of seeking social change,
627
01:07:04,387 --> 01:07:09,825
he seeks simply, in the revolutionary act,
to boost his own image. '
628
01:07:12,194 --> 01:07:14,924
That's the way
the breakers recede,
629
01:07:15,131 --> 01:07:19,261
and so predictably that one must believe
in an 'amnesia of the future'
630
01:07:19,468 --> 01:07:22,631
that history bestows,
out of mercy or self-interest,
631
01:07:22,838 --> 01:07:24,965
on those whom it recruits.
632
01:07:25,307 --> 01:07:28,799
Amilcar murdered
by members of his own party,
633
01:07:29,011 --> 01:07:32,174
the liberated areas
fallen to bloody petty tyrants,
634
01:07:32,381 --> 01:07:34,645
liquidated in their turn
by a central power
635
01:07:34,850 --> 01:07:38,411
to whose stability everyone
paid homage until the military coup -
636
01:07:38,621 --> 01:07:40,953
that's how history advances,
637
01:07:41,157 --> 01:07:44,217
plugging its memory
like one plugs one's ears.
638
01:07:44,427 --> 01:07:46,190
Luis, exiled to Cuba,
639
01:07:46,395 --> 01:07:49,057
and Nino,
himself a target of later plots,
640
01:07:49,265 --> 01:07:53,065
can summon each other endlessly
before history's court -
641
01:07:53,269 --> 01:07:55,294
but history doesn't care.
642
01:07:55,504 --> 01:07:58,735
It has only one friend,
the one Brando spoke of in Apocalypse:
643
01:07:59,241 --> 01:08:02,039
The horror that has a name
and a face.
644
01:08:04,513 --> 01:08:08,711
I'm writing you all this from another world,
a world of appearances.
645
01:08:09,185 --> 01:08:12,279
In a way, the two worlds
communicate with each other.
646
01:08:12,488 --> 01:08:15,218
Memory is to one
what history is to the other.
647
01:08:15,424 --> 01:08:17,392
An impossibility.
648
01:08:17,860 --> 01:08:20,954
Legends are born of the need
to decipher the indecipherable.
649
01:08:21,163 --> 01:08:23,859
Memories must make do
with their delirium, with their drift.
650
01:08:26,735 --> 01:08:28,635
A moment stopped would burn
651
01:08:28,838 --> 01:08:32,035
like a frame of film caught
in the furnace of the projector.
652
01:08:32,241 --> 01:08:35,108
Madness protects,
as fever does.
653
01:08:37,012 --> 01:08:39,412
I envy Hayao and his Zone.
654
01:08:39,615 --> 01:08:41,981
He plays
with the signs of his memory.
655
01:08:42,184 --> 01:08:44,345
He pins them down
and decorates them like insects
656
01:08:44,553 --> 01:08:46,316
that have flown beyond time
657
01:08:46,522 --> 01:08:50,083
and that he can contemplate
from a point outside of time -
658
01:08:50,326 --> 01:08:52,920
the only eternity we have left.
659
01:08:53,929 --> 01:08:55,897
I look at his machines.
660
01:08:56,098 --> 01:09:00,262
I think of a world where each memory
could create its own legend. "
661
01:10:04,333 --> 01:10:06,494
He wrote that only one film
had been capable
662
01:10:06,702 --> 01:10:08,966
of portraying impossible memory,
insane memory.
663
01:10:09,171 --> 01:10:12,038
Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo.
664
01:10:13,976 --> 01:10:15,637
In the spiral
of the opening titles,
665
01:10:15,844 --> 01:10:19,610
he saw time covering a field
growing ever wider as it moved away,
666
01:10:19,815 --> 01:10:24,275
a cyclone whose present moment
contains the motionless eye.
667
01:10:25,588 --> 01:10:29,615
In San Francisco he'd gone
on a pilgrimage to all the film's locations.
668
01:10:30,192 --> 01:10:35,459
The florist Podesta Baldocchi,
where James Stewart spies on Kim Novak,
669
01:10:35,664 --> 01:10:37,632
he the hunter
and she the prey -
670
01:10:37,833 --> 01:10:40,131
or was it the other way around?
671
01:10:40,536 --> 01:10:43,403
The tile floor hadn't changed.
672
01:10:43,772 --> 01:10:46,434
He'd driven up and down the hills
of San Francisco,
673
01:10:46,642 --> 01:10:50,305
where Jimmy Stewart - Scottie -
follows Kim Novak- Madeleine.
674
01:10:53,349 --> 01:10:56,443
It seems to be about pursuit,
mystery and murder,
675
01:10:56,652 --> 01:10:58,984
but in truth
it's about power and freedom,
676
01:10:59,188 --> 01:11:01,486
melancholy and dazzlement,
677
01:11:01,690 --> 01:11:05,786
so carefully coded within the spiral
that you could miss it
678
01:11:05,995 --> 01:11:08,361
and not immediately notice
that this vertigo of space
679
01:11:08,564 --> 01:11:11,533
in reality stands
for the vertigo of time.
680
01:11:13,269 --> 01:11:15,169
He'd followed every trail,
681
01:11:15,371 --> 01:11:17,339
even to the cemetery
at Mission Dolores,
682
01:11:17,539 --> 01:11:20,940
where Madeleine prayed at the grave
of a woman long dead
683
01:11:21,143 --> 01:11:23,611
whom she should not
have known.
684
01:11:23,979 --> 01:11:26,447
He'd followed Madeleine -
as Scottie had done -
685
01:11:26,649 --> 01:11:28,480
to the Museum
of the Legion of Honor,
686
01:11:28,684 --> 01:11:31,744
before the portrait of a dead woman
she shouldn't have known.
687
01:11:31,954 --> 01:11:34,514
And on the portrait,
as in Madeleine's hair,
688
01:11:34,723 --> 01:11:36,691
the spiral of time.
689
01:11:44,733 --> 01:11:48,999
The Victorian hotel where Madeleine
disappeared had itself disappeared.
690
01:11:49,204 --> 01:11:52,731
Concrete had replaced it
at the corner of Eddie and Gough.
691
01:11:52,941 --> 01:11:57,640
But the cross-section of redwood trunk
was still in Muir Woods.
692
01:11:57,913 --> 01:11:59,881
On it, Madeleine traced
the short distance
693
01:12:00,082 --> 01:12:04,314
between two of those concentric lines
that measure the age of the tree and said,
694
01:12:04,520 --> 01:12:07,216
"Here I was born,
and there I died. "
695
01:12:08,424 --> 01:12:11,359
He remembered another film
in which this passage was quoted.
696
01:12:11,860 --> 01:12:14,761
The redwood was
in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris,
697
01:12:14,963 --> 01:12:20,424
and the hand pointed to a place
beyond the tree - outside of time.
698
01:12:23,238 --> 01:12:25,570
This painted horse
at San Juan Bautista,
699
01:12:25,774 --> 01:12:28,334
with an eye
that looked like Madeleine's -
700
01:12:28,544 --> 01:12:31,775
Hitchcock had invented nothing.
It was all there.
701
01:12:32,448 --> 01:12:34,382
He'd run under the arches
in the mission
702
01:12:34,583 --> 01:12:36,608
as Madeleine had run
towards her death -
703
01:12:36,819 --> 01:12:39,379
but was it really hers?
704
01:12:41,724 --> 01:12:44,693
From this fake tower-
the only thing Hitchcock added-
705
01:12:44,893 --> 01:12:47,726
he imagined Scottie
as "Time's Fool of Love,"
706
01:12:48,097 --> 01:12:52,591
unable to live with memory
without falsifying it,
707
01:12:52,801 --> 01:12:55,827
inventing a double for Madeleine
in another dimension of time,
708
01:12:56,038 --> 01:12:58,871
a Zone that would belong
only to him,
709
01:12:59,074 --> 01:13:01,702
from which he could decipher
the undecipherable story
710
01:13:01,910 --> 01:13:05,471
begun under the Golden Gate when he
pulled Madeleine out of San Francisco Bay,
711
01:13:05,681 --> 01:13:08,616
when he'd saved her from death
before casting her back to death -
712
01:13:08,817 --> 01:13:11,547
or was it the other way around?
713
01:13:27,636 --> 01:13:31,629
"In San Francisco I made the pilgrimage
of a film I'd seen 19 times.
714
01:13:32,174 --> 01:13:35,803
In Iceland, I laid the first stone
of an imaginary film.
715
01:13:36,011 --> 01:13:38,673
That summer,
I'd met three children on a road,
716
01:13:38,881 --> 01:13:41,042
and a volcano had risen up
out of the sea -
717
01:13:41,250 --> 01:13:43,684
the Set Designer
at work once again.
718
01:13:45,053 --> 01:13:49,456
American astronauts trained in this lunar
landscape before flying to the moon.
719
01:13:49,658 --> 01:13:51,626
I immediately saw it as a setting
for science fiction,
720
01:13:51,827 --> 01:13:53,488
the landscape of another planet -
721
01:13:53,695 --> 01:13:58,325
No, let it be our own for someone
who comes from very far away.
722
01:13:59,368 --> 01:14:02,303
I imagine him lumbering about
like a deep-sea diver
723
01:14:02,504 --> 01:14:04,768
in this volcanic soil
that sticks to the soles.
724
01:14:04,973 --> 01:14:08,875
All of a sudden he stumbles,
and with the next step it's a year later.
725
01:14:09,077 --> 01:14:12,046
He's walking on a small path
near the Dutch border,
726
01:14:12,247 --> 01:14:14,977
along a seabird sanctuary.
727
01:14:16,318 --> 01:14:18,445
That's for a start.
728
01:14:18,654 --> 01:14:21,589
Why this cut in time,
this connection of memories?
729
01:14:21,790 --> 01:14:24,315
That's just it.
He can't understand.
730
01:14:24,526 --> 01:14:28,121
He comes not from another planet
but from our future.
731
01:14:28,330 --> 01:14:32,699
4001, when the human brain
has reached the era of full employment.
732
01:14:32,901 --> 01:14:34,869
Everything works to perfection -
733
01:14:35,070 --> 01:14:37,630
all that we now allow to slumber,
including memory.
734
01:14:38,507 --> 01:14:43,137
The logical result.
Total recall is memory anesthetized.
735
01:14:43,345 --> 01:14:46,212
After so many stories of men
who forgot how to remember,
736
01:14:46,415 --> 01:14:49,179
here's the story of one
who forgot how to forget...
737
01:14:50,519 --> 01:14:52,749
and who, through some peculiarity
of his nature,
738
01:14:52,955 --> 01:14:56,914
instead of being proud and scorning
mankind of the past and its shadows,
739
01:14:57,125 --> 01:15:01,391
turned to it first with curiosity
and then with compassion.
740
01:15:01,730 --> 01:15:03,960
In the world he comes from,
to call forth a vision,
741
01:15:04,166 --> 01:15:07,101
to be moved by a portrait,
to tremble at the sound of music
742
01:15:07,302 --> 01:15:11,033
can only be signs
of a long and painful prehistory.
743
01:15:11,573 --> 01:15:13,473
He wants to understand.
744
01:15:13,675 --> 01:15:17,441
He feels these infirmities of time
like an injustice,
745
01:15:17,646 --> 01:15:21,707
and he reacts to it like Che Guevara
or youth of the '60s - with indignation.
746
01:15:23,285 --> 01:15:25,378
He's a third worlder of time.
747
01:15:25,587 --> 01:15:28,556
The idea that unhappiness
had existed in his planet's past
748
01:15:28,757 --> 01:15:32,921
is as unbearable to him as the existence
of poverty in their present moment.
749
01:15:36,832 --> 01:15:38,925
Naturally, he will fail.
750
01:15:39,134 --> 01:15:41,364
The unhappiness he discovers
is as inaccessible to him
751
01:15:41,570 --> 01:15:46,132
as the poverty of a poor country
is to the children of a rich one.
752
01:15:46,341 --> 01:15:49,139
He's chosen
to give up his privileges,
753
01:15:49,344 --> 01:15:53,246
but he can do nothing about the privilege
that has allowed him to choose.
754
01:15:54,516 --> 01:15:57,610
His only comfort is precisely
what threw him into this absurd quest.
755
01:15:57,819 --> 01:16:00,583
A song cycle by Moussorgski.
756
01:16:00,889 --> 01:16:03,653
It's still sung
in the 40th century.
757
01:16:03,859 --> 01:16:07,056
Its meaning has been lost,
but for the first time, he glimpsed
758
01:16:07,262 --> 01:16:09,492
the presence of that thing
he didn't understand,
759
01:16:09,698 --> 01:16:11,996
which had to do
with unhappiness and memory,
760
01:16:12,200 --> 01:16:14,361
which he must grasp at all cost,
761
01:16:14,570 --> 01:16:18,802
and toward which, slowly,
heavily, he began to walk.
762
01:16:21,843 --> 01:16:24,607
Of course,
I'll never make that film.
763
01:16:26,715 --> 01:16:30,173
Nonetheless, I'm collecting sets,
devising plot twists,
764
01:16:30,385 --> 01:16:32,683
putting in my favorite creatures.
765
01:16:32,888 --> 01:16:35,186
I've even given it a title,
766
01:16:35,791 --> 01:16:38,282
indeed, the title
of those Moussorgski songs.
767
01:16:38,493 --> 01:16:40,620
Sunless."
768
01:17:00,983 --> 01:17:03,952
"On May 15th, 1945,
at 7.00 a.m.,
769
01:17:04,152 --> 01:17:06,814
the 382nd US Infantry Regiment
770
01:17:07,022 --> 01:17:10,958
attacked a hill in Okinawa
they had renamed Dick Hill.
771
01:17:11,159 --> 01:17:14,651
I suppose they believed
they were conquering Japanese soil
772
01:17:14,863 --> 01:17:17,559
and knew nothing
about Ryukyu civilization.
773
01:17:17,766 --> 01:17:19,393
Neither did I,
774
01:17:19,601 --> 01:17:21,728
except that the faces
of the market ladies at Itoman
775
01:17:21,937 --> 01:17:25,498
spoke to me more of Gauguin
than of Utamaro.
776
01:17:25,707 --> 01:17:29,803
Through centuries of dreamy vassalage,
time had not stirred in the archipelago.
777
01:17:30,012 --> 01:17:31,946
Then came the rupture.
778
01:17:32,514 --> 01:17:36,917
Is it a property of islands to make women
the guardians of their memory?
779
01:17:37,119 --> 01:17:41,317
I learned that, as in the Bijagos, magic
knowledge is passed on through women.
780
01:17:41,523 --> 01:17:44,253
Each community
has its priestess, the noro,
781
01:17:44,459 --> 01:17:47,826
who presides over all ceremonies,
with the exception of funerals.
782
01:17:48,497 --> 01:17:50,590
The Japanese defended
their position inch by inch.
783
01:17:50,799 --> 01:17:54,326
At the end of the day,
the remnants of L Company
784
01:17:54,536 --> 01:17:57,061
had gotten only
halfway up the hill-
785
01:17:57,339 --> 01:17:59,739
a hill like the one
where I followed some villagers
786
01:17:59,941 --> 01:18:03,274
on their way
to a purification ceremony.
787
01:18:03,478 --> 01:18:05,878
The noro communicates
with the gods of the sea,
788
01:18:06,081 --> 01:18:07,981
of rain, of earth, of fire.
789
01:18:08,183 --> 01:18:12,313
She speaks of them
as of family members who've made good.
790
01:18:12,521 --> 01:18:16,514
All bow down before the Sister Deity,
a reflection, in the absolute,
791
01:18:16,725 --> 01:18:19,626
of a privileged relationship
between brother and sister.
792
01:18:19,828 --> 01:18:23,559
Even after her death, the sister
maintains her spiritual predominance.
793
01:18:23,765 --> 01:18:25,733
At dawn
the Americans withdrew.
794
01:18:25,934 --> 01:18:28,732
Fighting went on for a month
before the island surrendered-
795
01:18:28,937 --> 01:18:31,371
and toppled
into the modern world.
796
01:18:31,573 --> 01:18:33,302
Twenty-seven years
of American occupation,
797
01:18:33,508 --> 01:18:35,703
Japan's disputed
sovereignty restored.
798
01:18:35,911 --> 01:18:38,072
Two miles from bowling alleys
and gas stations,
799
01:18:38,280 --> 01:18:41,511
the noro continues her dialogue
with the gods.
800
01:18:41,717 --> 01:18:44,777
When she's gone,
the dialogue will end.
801
01:18:44,986 --> 01:18:48,945
Brothers will no longer know that
their dead sister is watching over them.
802
01:19:58,226 --> 01:20:02,253
When filming this ceremony, I knew
I was present at the end of something.
803
01:20:02,931 --> 01:20:06,367
Magical cultures that disappear
leave traces for those who follow.
804
01:20:06,568 --> 01:20:08,832
This one will leave none.
805
01:20:09,037 --> 01:20:11,301
The rupture in history
has been too violent.
806
01:20:11,506 --> 01:20:14,066
I touched that rupture
at the top of the hill,
807
01:20:14,276 --> 01:20:16,244
as I had at the edge of the ditch
808
01:20:16,444 --> 01:20:19,413
where 200 girls used grenades
in 1945 to commit suicide
809
01:20:19,614 --> 01:20:23,243
rather than fall
into American hands.
810
01:20:23,451 --> 01:20:25,510
People have
their pictures taken here.
811
01:20:25,720 --> 01:20:29,918
Grenade-shaped cigarette lighters
are sold nearby as souvenirs.
812
01:20:34,930 --> 01:20:36,397
On Hayao's machine,
813
01:20:36,598 --> 01:20:41,934
war resembles letters being burned,
shredded in a fiery frame.
814
01:20:42,204 --> 01:20:45,867
The code name for Pearl Harbor
was "Tora, tora, tora,"
815
01:20:46,074 --> 01:20:49,771
the name of the cat the couple
in Gotokuji was praying for.
816
01:20:49,978 --> 01:20:54,847
So all of this will have begun with
the name of a cat pronounced three times.
817
01:21:02,490 --> 01:21:07,052
Off Okinawa,
kamikazes dived on the American fleet.
818
01:21:07,262 --> 01:21:11,062
They would become a legend, and were
likelier material for it, obviously,
819
01:21:11,266 --> 01:21:14,258
than the special units who exposed their
prisoners to the bitter frost of Manchuria
820
01:21:14,469 --> 01:21:19,406
and then to hot water to see
how fast flesh separates from bone.
821
01:21:20,275 --> 01:21:24,439
Only their last letters would reveal
that the kamikaze weren't all volunteers,
822
01:21:24,646 --> 01:21:27,444
nor were they all
swashbuckling samurai.
823
01:21:27,649 --> 01:21:32,313
Before drinking his last cup of sake,
Ryoji Uebara had written,
824
01:21:32,520 --> 01:21:37,116
'I've always thought that Japan
must live free to live eternally.
825
01:21:37,325 --> 01:21:41,489
It may seem idiotic to say that today,
under a totalitarian regime.
826
01:21:42,063 --> 01:21:47,160
We kamikaze pilots are machines.
We have nothing to say
827
01:21:47,369 --> 01:21:51,169
except to beg our compatriots to make
Japan the great country of our dreams.
828
01:21:51,373 --> 01:21:53,170
In the plane
I'm a machine,
829
01:21:53,375 --> 01:21:56,276
a bit of magnetized metal that will
plaster itself to an aircraft carrier,
830
01:21:56,478 --> 01:22:01,415
but on the ground, I'm a human being,
with feelings and passions.
831
01:22:01,616 --> 01:22:03,811
Please excuse
these disorganized thoughts.
832
01:22:04,019 --> 01:22:05,919
I'm leaving you
with a rather melancholy picture,
833
01:22:06,121 --> 01:22:08,589
but in the depths of my heart,
I'm happy.
834
01:22:08,790 --> 01:22:12,385
I've spoken frankly.
Forgive me. "'
835
01:23:36,945 --> 01:23:40,108
Every time he came back from Africa,
he stopped at the Island of Sal,
836
01:23:40,315 --> 01:23:43,443
a salt rock
in the middle of the Atlantic.
837
01:23:43,651 --> 01:23:45,516
At the end of the island,
838
01:23:45,720 --> 01:23:48,553
beyond the village of Santa Maria
and its cemetery of painted tombs,
839
01:23:48,757 --> 01:23:52,659
one need only walk straight ahead
to meet the desert.
840
01:24:06,441 --> 01:24:08,432
He wrote...
841
01:24:08,643 --> 01:24:10,406
"I've understood the visions.
842
01:24:10,612 --> 01:24:13,080
Suddenly you're in the desert
the way you are in the night.
843
01:24:13,281 --> 01:24:15,340
Whatever is not desert
no longer exists.
844
01:24:15,550 --> 01:24:18,883
You don't want to believe
the images that crop up.
845
01:25:14,542 --> 01:25:17,909
Did I write that there are emus
in the Ile de France?
846
01:25:19,614 --> 01:25:23,414
'Island of France' sounds strange
on the Island of Sal.
847
01:25:23,651 --> 01:25:25,778
My memory superimposes
two towers,
848
01:25:25,987 --> 01:25:29,286
the one in the castle ruins of Montepilloy
that Joan of Arc used as a camp,
849
01:25:30,091 --> 01:25:32,355
and the lighthouse tower
at the southern tip of Sal,
850
01:25:32,560 --> 01:25:35,757
probably one
of the last lighthouses to use oil.
851
01:26:00,388 --> 01:26:03,118
A lighthouse in the Sahel
looks pasted on
852
01:26:03,324 --> 01:26:07,226
until you see the ocean
at the edge of the sand and salt.
853
01:26:07,962 --> 01:26:11,295
Crews of transcontinental planes
are rotated on Sal.
854
01:26:11,499 --> 01:26:13,558
Their club brings
to this empty frontier
855
01:26:13,768 --> 01:26:17,431
a small touch of the seaside resort
that makes the rest even more unreal.
856
01:26:17,639 --> 01:26:20,802
They feed the stray dogs
that live on the beach.
857
01:26:34,522 --> 01:26:37,184
My dogs seemed
pretty nervous that evening.
858
01:26:37,392 --> 01:26:41,158
They played with the sea
as I'd never seen them before.
859
01:26:41,396 --> 01:26:44,126
Listening to Radio Hong Kong
later on, I understood.
860
01:26:44,332 --> 01:26:47,529
That was the first day
of the lunar new year,
861
01:26:47,735 --> 01:26:52,399
and for the first time in 60 years, the
sign of the Dog met the sign of Water. "
862
01:27:35,583 --> 01:27:37,915
"Out there,
11,000 miles away,
863
01:27:38,119 --> 01:27:41,020
a single shadow remains immobile
among the long moving shadows
864
01:27:41,222 --> 01:27:43,782
that the January light
casts on the ground in Tokyo.
865
01:27:43,992 --> 01:27:46,426
The shadow of the Asakusa monk.
866
01:28:36,110 --> 01:28:39,136
For in Japan too
the Year of the Dog is beginning.
867
01:28:39,347 --> 01:28:42,248
Temples are filled with visitors
who toss their coins
868
01:28:42,450 --> 01:28:44,418
and pray, Japanese-style -
869
01:28:44,619 --> 01:28:48,111
a prayer slipped quietly into life
without interrupting it.
870
01:29:19,987 --> 01:29:22,512
Stranded at the end of the world,
on my Island of Sal,
871
01:29:22,724 --> 01:29:25,056
in the company
of my prancing dogs,
872
01:29:25,259 --> 01:29:26,920
I remember that January in Tokyo,
873
01:29:27,128 --> 01:29:31,155
or rather I remember the images
I filmed that January in Tokyo.
874
01:29:31,366 --> 01:29:33,459
They've replaced my memory.
875
01:29:33,668 --> 01:29:35,431
They are my memory.
876
01:29:36,003 --> 01:29:41,168
I wonder how people remember things
who don't film or photograph or tape.
877
01:29:41,376 --> 01:29:44,072
How has mankind
managed to remember?
878
01:29:44,278 --> 01:29:47,076
I know.
It wrote the Bible.
879
01:29:47,615 --> 01:29:50,550
The new bible will be
an eternal magnetic tape
880
01:29:50,752 --> 01:29:54,813
of a time that will have to reread itself
constantly, just to know it existed.
881
01:29:55,823 --> 01:29:58,621
As we await the year 4001
and its total recall,
882
01:29:58,826 --> 01:30:01,158
that's what the New Year oracles
883
01:30:01,362 --> 01:30:04,627
that we take out of
their long hexagonal boxes offer us.
884
01:30:04,832 --> 01:30:07,130
A little more power
over that memory
885
01:30:07,335 --> 01:30:09,803
that runs from camp to camp,
like Joan of Arc,
886
01:30:10,004 --> 01:30:12,302
that a shortwave announcement
from Hong Kong Radio
887
01:30:12,507 --> 01:30:15,442
picked up on a Cape Verde Island
projects to Tokyo,
888
01:30:15,643 --> 01:30:18,168
and that the memory of a precise color
in the street bounces back
889
01:30:18,379 --> 01:30:20,609
on another country,
another distance,
890
01:30:20,815 --> 01:30:24,410
another music, endlessly.
891
01:30:32,427 --> 01:30:34,395
At the end of memory's path,
892
01:30:34,962 --> 01:30:37,863
the ideograms of the Island of France
are no less enigmatic
893
01:30:38,065 --> 01:30:42,832
than the kanji of Tokyo
in the miraculous light of the New Year.
894
01:30:43,037 --> 01:30:44,698
It's Indian winter.
895
01:30:44,906 --> 01:30:46,806
It's as if the air
were the first element
896
01:30:47,008 --> 01:30:49,169
to emerge purified
from the countless ceremonies
897
01:30:49,377 --> 01:30:53,177
the Japanese use to wash off one year
before entering the next.
898
01:30:53,381 --> 01:30:55,315
A full month is just enough
899
01:30:55,516 --> 01:30:59,782
to fulfill all the duties
that courtesy owes to time,
900
01:30:59,987 --> 01:31:01,716
the most interesting
being the acquisition,
901
01:31:01,923 --> 01:31:04,323
at the temple of Tenjin,
of the Uso bird,
902
01:31:04,525 --> 01:31:07,756
who, according to one tradition,
eats all your lies of the year to come,
903
01:31:07,962 --> 01:31:11,489
and according to another,
turns them into truths.
904
01:31:11,799 --> 01:31:14,893
But what gives the street
its color in January,
905
01:31:15,102 --> 01:31:17,332
what makes it suddenly different,
906
01:31:17,538 --> 01:31:19,904
is the appearance
of the kimonos.
907
01:31:20,475 --> 01:31:22,170
In the street,
in stores, in offices,
908
01:31:22,376 --> 01:31:24,537
even at the stock exchange
on opening day,
909
01:31:24,745 --> 01:31:28,579
girls bring out
their fur-collared winter kimonos.
910
01:31:28,783 --> 01:31:30,250
At that time of year,
911
01:31:30,451 --> 01:31:34,080
others may invent extra-flat TVsets,
commit suicide with chain saws,
912
01:31:34,288 --> 01:31:37,223
or capture two-thirds of the world market
for semiconductors - good for them!
913
01:31:37,425 --> 01:31:39,893
All you see are the girls.
914
01:31:50,838 --> 01:31:53,102
January 15th
is Coming-of-Age day,
915
01:31:53,307 --> 01:31:56,538
an obligatory celebration
in the life of a young Japanese woman.
916
01:31:56,744 --> 01:32:01,306
City governments distribute bags
filled with gifts, date books, advice.
917
01:32:01,516 --> 01:32:04,417
How to be a good citizen,
mother and wife.
918
01:32:05,653 --> 01:32:09,282
On that day, every 20-year-old girl
can phone her family for free,
919
01:32:09,490 --> 01:32:11,924
no matter where in Japan.
920
01:32:13,294 --> 01:32:17,287
Work, home and country -
this is the anteroom of adulthood.
921
01:32:17,865 --> 01:32:21,858
The world of the Takenoko and of
rock singers speeds away like a rocket.
922
01:32:22,270 --> 01:32:26,434
Speakers explain
what society expects of them.
923
01:32:26,641 --> 01:32:29,940
How long will they take
to forget the secret?
924
01:33:28,803 --> 01:33:30,828
And when
all the celebrations are over,
925
01:33:31,038 --> 01:33:34,769
all that remains is to collect
the ornaments and accessories
926
01:33:34,976 --> 01:33:37,444
and burn them
in one more celebration.
927
01:34:22,423 --> 01:34:24,391
This is dondoyaki,
928
01:34:24,592 --> 01:34:28,494
a Shinto blessing of the debris
that has a right to immortality,
929
01:34:28,696 --> 01:34:30,425
like the dolls at Ueno.
930
01:34:30,631 --> 01:34:34,123
The last stage in the poignancy of things
before they disappear.
931
01:34:35,202 --> 01:34:39,832
Daruma, the one-eyed spirit,
reigns supreme atop the bonfire.
932
01:34:40,041 --> 01:34:42,703
Abandonment must be a feast,
laceration must be a feast,
933
01:34:42,910 --> 01:34:45,276
and the farewell
to all that one has lost, broken, used,
934
01:34:45,479 --> 01:34:47,447
must be ennobled by a ceremony.
935
01:34:47,648 --> 01:34:50,446
It's Japan that could fulfill
the wish of that French writer
936
01:34:50,651 --> 01:34:53,176
who wanted divorce
to be made a sacrament.
937
01:34:53,387 --> 01:34:55,548
The only baffling part
of this ritual
938
01:34:55,756 --> 01:34:59,214
was the children striking
the ground with long poles.
939
01:34:59,427 --> 01:35:01,452
I only got one explanation,
a rather peculiar one.
940
01:35:01,662 --> 01:35:05,189
I thought it might be
a small, intimate ritual,
941
01:35:05,399 --> 01:35:07,833
but it was to chase away moles.
942
01:35:50,344 --> 01:35:55,247
And that's where my three children from
Iceland came and grafted themselves in.
943
01:35:56,317 --> 01:35:58,512
I picked up the whole shot again,
944
01:35:58,719 --> 01:36:00,619
adding the somewhat
hazy ending,
945
01:36:00,821 --> 01:36:04,222
the frame trembling
under the force of the wind.
946
01:36:04,425 --> 01:36:06,359
Everything I had cut
in order to "tidy up"
947
01:36:06,560 --> 01:36:09,552
and that said better than all the rest
what I saw in that moment,
948
01:36:09,764 --> 01:36:12,232
why I held it at arm's length,
at zoom's length,
949
01:36:12,433 --> 01:36:15,425
until its last 24th of a second.
950
01:36:17,338 --> 01:36:19,829
The city of Heimaey
spread out below us,
951
01:36:20,040 --> 01:36:21,974
and when, five years later,
my friend Haroun Tazieff
952
01:36:22,176 --> 01:36:24,371
sent me the film
he'd just shot in the same place,
953
01:36:24,578 --> 01:36:29,743
I lacked only the name to know
that nature performs its own dondoyaki.
954
01:36:30,785 --> 01:36:33,583
The island's volcano
had reawakened.
955
01:36:33,788 --> 01:36:35,415
I looked at those pictures,
956
01:36:35,623 --> 01:36:40,060
and it was as if all of 1965
had just been covered in ash.
957
01:36:56,744 --> 01:36:58,735
So all one had to do was wait,
958
01:36:58,946 --> 01:37:02,575
and the planet itself
would stage the working of time.
959
01:37:03,551 --> 01:37:06,349
I saw again
what had been my window.
960
01:37:06,554 --> 01:37:09,489
I saw familiar roofs
and balconies emerge,
961
01:37:09,690 --> 01:37:12,420
the landmarks of the walks
I took through town every day,
962
01:37:12,626 --> 01:37:15,459
down to the cliff
where I'd met the children.
963
01:37:16,997 --> 01:37:20,797
The cat with white socks
that Haroun had kindly filmed for me
964
01:37:21,001 --> 01:37:23,561
naturally found its place,
965
01:37:23,771 --> 01:37:27,138
and I thought that of all the prayers
to time that I'd studied this trip,
966
01:37:27,341 --> 01:37:30,105
the kindest was the one spoken
by the woman of Gotokuji,
967
01:37:30,311 --> 01:37:32,609
who said simply to her cat Tora,
968
01:37:32,813 --> 01:37:36,909
"Beloved cat, wherever you are,
may your soul rest in peace. "
969
01:37:59,573 --> 01:38:02,667
And then, in its turn,
the journey entered the Zone.
970
01:38:03,444 --> 01:38:07,312
Hayao showed me my images
already touched by the moss of time,
971
01:38:07,514 --> 01:38:10,381
freed of the lie that had prolonged
the existence of those moments
972
01:38:10,584 --> 01:38:13,052
swallowed by the spiral.
973
01:38:28,769 --> 01:38:30,999
When spring came
974
01:38:31,205 --> 01:38:35,164
and every crow announced its arrival
by raising his cry half a tone,
975
01:38:35,809 --> 01:38:40,439
I took the green train of the Yamanote
line and got off at Tokyo station,
976
01:38:40,648 --> 01:38:43,481
near the central post office.
977
01:38:43,918 --> 01:38:45,977
Though the street was empty,
978
01:38:46,186 --> 01:38:48,677
I waited at the red light,
Japanese-style,
979
01:38:48,989 --> 01:38:52,322
to leave space
for the spirits of broken cars.
980
01:38:52,526 --> 01:38:54,357
Though I was expecting no letter,
981
01:38:54,561 --> 01:38:57,121
I stopped
at the general delivery window,
982
01:38:57,331 --> 01:38:59,993
for one must honor
the spirits of torn-up letters,
983
01:39:00,200 --> 01:39:04,796
and at the airmail counter,
to hail the spirits of unmailed letters.
984
01:39:06,040 --> 01:39:08,133
I took the measure
of the unbearable vanity of the West
985
01:39:08,342 --> 01:39:10,469
that has always favored
being over non-being,
986
01:39:10,678 --> 01:39:12,373
what is spoken
over what's left unsaid.
987
01:39:12,579 --> 01:39:16,379
I walked along the little stalls
of clothing dealers.
988
01:39:16,583 --> 01:39:20,041
In the distance I heard Mr. Akao's voice
reverberating from the loudspeakers,
989
01:39:20,254 --> 01:39:22,449
now a half tone higher.
990
01:39:22,656 --> 01:39:24,419
Then I went down
to the basement
991
01:39:24,625 --> 01:39:28,083
where my maniac friend busies
himself with his electronic graffiti.
992
01:39:28,329 --> 01:39:30,263
In the end
his language touches me,
993
01:39:30,464 --> 01:39:34,958
for he talks to that part of us that insists
on drawing profiles on prison walls.
994
01:39:35,169 --> 01:39:37,103
A piece of chalk
to follow the contours
995
01:39:37,304 --> 01:39:40,831
of what is not,
or is no longer, or is not yet.
996
01:39:41,108 --> 01:39:43,804
The handwriting each of us
will use to draw up
997
01:39:44,011 --> 01:39:46,946
his own list of things
that quicken the heart -
998
01:39:47,147 --> 01:39:49,877
to offer up or to erase.
999
01:39:50,751 --> 01:39:53,049
In that moment,
poetry will be made by everyone,
1000
01:39:53,253 --> 01:39:55,983
and there will be emus
in the Zone. "
1001
01:40:15,476 --> 01:40:17,444
He writes to me from Japan.
1002
01:40:17,644 --> 01:40:19,544
He writes to me from Africa.
1003
01:40:19,747 --> 01:40:23,581
He says he can now summon up the look
on the market lady's face in Praia
1004
01:40:23,784 --> 01:40:25,979
that had lasted
only the length of a film frame.
1005
01:40:27,688 --> 01:40:31,089
Will there be
a last letter someday?
1006
01:40:34,561 --> 01:40:38,156
IN THE FRENCH AUDIO VERSION,
1007
01:40:38,365 --> 01:40:44,235
THE LETTERS OF SANDOR KRASNA
WERE READ BY FLORENCE DELAY