Toshio Matsumoto – { feuilleton }

Two short films by Ito Takashi

Ito Takashi’s early experimental films achieve their delirious effects with a minimum of means: flickering lights, projected images, and pixillation of the camera and the blurred figures that flit through the frame. Not all are on YouTube at the moment but Thunder (1982) and Ghost (1984) are exceptional works, both with electronic soundtracks by Yosuke Inagaki. (Those sensitive to flickering lights should be warned that Thunder features rapid strobing from the outset.)

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Atman, a film by Toshio Matsumoto

Phantom, a film by Toshio Matsumoto

Yet another short film by Matsumoto, Phantom (1975) differs from the previous examples by being less abstract but thoroughly inexplicable. Disconnected sequences—a naked woman on a beach; a man performing yoga asanas outdoors; an eyeball floating over a city; two people walking round a flickering statue—are intercut with close-ups of a woman’s face. As with Atman, most of the footage looks like it was shot on infra-red film. Once again, a Japanese composer provides the score that hold the piece together, this one being the work of Jo Kondo. Watch it here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• White Hole, a film by Toshio Matsumoto
• Atman, a film by Toshio Matsumoto
• Metastasis, a film by Toshio Matsumoto

White Hole, a film by Toshio Matsumoto

Another short film by Matsumoto. This one was made in 1979, and seems to employ video effects, but the results are cosmic and psychedelic enough to have appeared ten years earlier. The electronic score is by Joji Yuasa. An entrancing 6-minute trip. Watch it here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Atman, a film by Toshio Matsumoto
• Metastasis, a film by Toshio Matsumoto

Atman, a film by Toshio Matsumoto

Atman was made four years after Metastasis in 1975, and shares similar features: another static object—a woman sitting outdoors wearing a hannya demon mask from the Noh theatre—is seen from different angles in a succession of crash zooms and encircling jump cuts. Infra-red film gives the scene its lurid colouring this time; as in as in Metastasis the picture occasionally bleaches to white. Toshi Ichiyanagi once again provides an electronic soundtrack. Ten minutes of this makes for a very strange film. Watch it here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Metastasis, a film by Toshio Matsumoto

Metastasis, a film by Toshio Matsumoto

Or Toshio’s Psychedelic Toilet. Toshio Matsumoto is known to cineastes for feature films such as Funeral Parade of Roses (which I’ve still not seen—sorry, Thom!), but he’s also responsible for a number of experimental films like this one. In Metastasis (1971) we watch a toilet bowl for 9 minutes while the colours and contrast shift continually. Matsumoto said (in a scrambled quote):

I used the Erekutoro Karapurosesu (Electro Color Processor), which is mainly used in the field of medicine and engineering, to create moving image textures Metastasis, I was interested in layering images of a simple object and its electronically processed abstraction. The electronic abstract image is manipulated in a certain rhythm, depicting an organic process.

This might be tedious if it didn’t also have a decent electronic score by Toshi Ichiyanagi. Watch it here.