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“LINE” directed by Tadanori Kotani
Reviews
Written by Mizuki TANAKA   
Published: May 17 2010

fig. 1 'LINE" (2008/Japan/52min./color/standard, courtesy of PolePole Higashi-nakano

fig. 2 'LINE" (2008/Japan/52min./color/standard, courtesy of PolePole Higashi-nakano

fig. 3 'LINE" (2008/Japan/52min./color/standard, courtesy of PolePole Higashi-nakano

fig. 4 'LINE" (2008/Japan/52min./color/standard, courtesy of PolePole Higashi-nakano

    Have you ever closely looked at a ghost appearing in a horror movie video by stopping the image on the screen? A ghost usually scares us immediately after it appears in front of us. However, we gradually become less frightened while staring at it. This may be due to the fact that we come to have a sense of intimacy with a ghost as we can imagine its life from the figure and facial expression of the ghost. Actually, our fear of a ghost is stirred by avoiding looking at it. Objects which multiply our fear when we dare not gaze at them would include not only inhuman existences, such as ghosts, but also people close to us. For instance, how about your father?
    A documentary film entitled “LINE” (2008) *1 directed by Tadanori Kotani tells us a story about Kotani’s experience of having faced two “fathers”. In the movie, he seems to make his life stop in order to look at something directly which he has avoided facing. The first “father” is Kotani’s own father who is alcoholic. The second is the role of “father” which Kotani wishes to play for his girlfriend’s son. Indeed, the child has no blood relationship with Kotani, but Kotani intends to become the child’s father. However, he is irritated at various kinds of the current situations surrounding him. For example, the following scene in the movie made a deep impression on me. One night, as usual, Kotani picks his father at a bar. The father, who is drunk, tells Kotani that Kotani and his father are “considerably different” existences. He speaks in a ferocious tone as if he refuses to accept the existence of his son, Kotani. In other scene, Kotani is having dinner with his girlfriend’s son in a reticent attitude, though the son is willing to tell him a lot of things. Kotani seems to refuse to face both of the “fathers”. Under such conditions as these, this movie is composed of images of people, scenes and of himself taken by Kotani using a video camera. In the film, after the present situations are shown at the beginning, Kotani leaves for Okinawa, which has had a historically close relationship with Taisho-ku in Osaka where Kotani has been living.
    Taisho-ku in Osaka developed as one of the city’s industrial districts after the flourishing of the textile industry there in the Meiji era. A number of immigrants from Okinawa gathered there. Presently approximately 30% of the ward’s residents are Okinawan people. Thus, it can be said that Taisho-ku has an unusual historic background in that Okinawan culture has become well-established there in spite of its being located in Osaka. Kotani wishes to see the “real Okinawa” for himself and goes on a trip which can be described as either a trip for escaping from something or one in order to confront some issues. After visiting several places, Kotani reached Koza Yoshiwara in the end. Koza Yoshiwara, which is located in the mid area of the main island of Okinawa, is well known as a nightlife district. Formerly it was a restricted area and even now there are women working there in the sex industry. Inspired by figures of these working women, Kotani asked them if he could take film their bodies.
    Completely different from gravure pictures of best-proportioned women, their naked bodies shown in this Kotani’s film represent human bodies with scratches and scrapes. We find there are all kinds of signs on the surface of human bodies, such as three lines found on a stomach, indications of abdominal subcutaneous fat, skin texture, wrinkles, traces of surgery and those of self-inflicted injuries, and tattoos. Various kinds of these traces having been hidden under their clothes make us realize their lives more intensely than words do. In addition, it is striking that Kotani has shot images of the women’s facial expressions for several minutes without any voice. Movies have a unique characteristic which is different from that of photographs in that we are able to record silent scenes in films. The women gradually change their facial expressions while they are communicating through their eyes without using any letters. While catching Konani’s eyes, they sometimes fear, get flustered, control their emotions, laugh, and gaze back at him with maternal eyes, as if they accept everything as it is.
    I do not find any sexual dimension in Kotani’s views of these women. Through this film, he shows us an approach to facing human bodies beyond sexual differences. Nonetheless, it would not be true that his perspective is utterly irrelevant to “gender differences”. When I first saw this scene, I got a feeling of strangeness that Kotani seemed to consciously avoid revealing his male perspective since I could not find any image of a man and an undamaged woman. In other words, the scene left me with an especially manlike impression of his viewpoint, adversely. However, while watching the scene for a while, such first impressions of mine started to disappear. I suppose these women’s facial expression shown in this scene would not be revealed to people of the same sex. This does not mean that the women in the film try to gain Kotani’s favor. Their faces represent their real selves which can be exposed only to others of the opposite sex whom it is difficult for these women to thoroughly understand. Women artists, such as the photographer, Miyako Ishiuchi, have also taken shots of women’s naked bodies with scratches and scrapes. Nevertheless, their creations reflect a feeling of trust as well as a sense of tension, which are often only found in relationships between people of the same sex. In contrast, Kotani has made his subjects (women) reveal their true faces which can be exposed without any hesitation only to the opposite sex. The women’s faces make the viewers imagine that they are seeking a mutual understanding with a person of the opposite sex.*2
    Furthermore, through this scene, Kotani shows us that the silent communication has a significant meaning. Communication cannot always be facilitated by using as many words as possible. In this film, we can find another style of communication between Kotani and the subjects in that they face each other, accept differences between themselves, which are difficult to be understood by the other, and try to imagine the other’s feelings. At the beginning of the scene, the faces of the women living in Koza are shot from an oblique angle while keeping a certain distance. However, they gradually come to be squarely filmed at extremely close range. This seems to reflect a change of Kotani’s attitude that he comes to accept scars left on others straightforwardly and this makes him decide to face others whom it is difficult for him to understand.
    The communication style which Kotani learnt while taking shots of the women comes to connect with a change of Kotani’s perspective of his families. And, in the end, an invisible “line” ambiguously appears in front of us. Viewers come to realize that this movie is not a record of the subjects, but of Kotani’s viewpoint. The movie clearly expresses this point by showing several changes found in Kotani’s daily life after he comes back from Koza. To express this, Kotani utilized a contrast effect. As one example, in the opening of the movie, there is a scene in which Kotani is throwing up into a toilet late at night. In contrast to this, in other scene toward the end of the film, Kotani is having a meal with his father in a sunny living room. To cite another instance, at the beginning part of the film, the girlfriend’s son is posing as a pitcher in front of a television screen while a baseball game is being aired. However, he comes to play catch with Kotani’s father in the later scene after Kotani comes back from Koza. At the beginning of the film, Kotani’s father is shot only from his back and with an oblique angle. How then did Kotani take a frame of his father on a sunny deck at the end of the film? The father’s facial expression shown in the last scene leaves viewers with an intense impression of the change in Kotani’s perspective – the theme of the movie.
    As reliving the change of Kotani’s viewpoint through this film, we, the viewers, may be given an opportunity to think about our own perspectives. The large-sized screen and the projection of light in the darkness of the theater made me vividly conscious of a feeling of distance between the subjects and Kotani, as well as the contrast between the daylight and the night-sky light found in the movie. This effectively enabled me to realize how Kotani faced the subjects in the film. The “perspective” which we learnt from this movie will also be repeated in our daily lives even after leaving the theater.
(Translated by Nozomi Nakayama)

Notes
*1
“LINE”, 2008/Japan/52 minutes/color/standard|Director/camera, film & tape/editor: Tadanori Kotani|Producer: sorairo film|Promoter: Three-pin|Distributor: Nonderaiko|Released as a late show at PolePole Higashi-Nakano (http://www.mmjp.or.jp/pole2/) in Tokyo from 22 May, 2010 and afterwards sequentially aired throughout Japan.
Official Site: http://line.2u2n.jp/index.html
*2
In this movie there is no mention of this, but we cannot find any scene in which Kotani’s own mother appears as one of the women in his families, though Kotani selected women as subjects in this film. According to a conversation between Kotani and a photographic researcher, Manabu Torihara, held as part of a screening especially prepared for students of Nippon Photography Institute in Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, on 21 April, 2010, his mother is actually in fine and is living with Kotani. It is said that a scene in which his mother appeared was omitted due to the fact that Kotani was required to consider the situations regarding her job and that he wished to limit the theme of this film. However, I wish Kotani had made a scene including some description of why he didn’t refer to his mother in the film, since I couldn’t help suspecting that the absence of his mother would have some particular meaning in this movie.

RELATED FILM

“LINE” directed by Tadanori Kotani
22/May/2010 - 18/Jun/2010
Venue: PolePole Higashi-nakano

Last Updated on October 20 2015
 

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