Review: Japanese Avant-Garde Pioneers

The documentary has evolved in recent years; films like And Everything Is Going Fine, Tower, and (to a lesser degree) Witches of the Orient have boldly innovated on the genre, adventurously and imaginatively deconstructing the fabric of what defines “nonfiction” storytelling (an inherent misnomer, of course; the camera by its very nature distorts whatever it observes). Japanese Avant-Garde Pioneers is, in comparison, rather formally conventional, revolving around a roughly equal mix of archival footage and “talking head” interviews—not unlike the average Discovery Channel special. One should not, however, mistake this relatively traditional style for a lack of originality or ambition; although the movie admittedly feels somewhat unremarkable in terms of its presentation, it is nevertheless informative, insightful, and (most importantly) quite comprehensive.

Adopting a structure akin to a collage (less a linearly argued thesis than it is an intricately branching web of loosely associated topics), director Amélie Ravalec thoroughly examines how Japan’s postwar trauma (among numerous other factors; I’m intentionally being a bit reductive for the sake of brevity) resulted in the emergence of a thriving avant-garde art movement—a countercultural revolution that encompassed photography, interpretive dance, underground theater, experimental cinema, and even graphic design, spearheaded by such mavericks as Nobuyoshi Araki, Tatsumi Hijikata, and Tadanori Yokoo. The words of these uncompromising visionaries and their contemporaries/collaborators/critics, coupled with the reverently displayed images of the immortal works that they produced (depicted in stunning detail, filling the frame with haunting shades of monochrome and vibrant splashes of primary colors alike) paint a compelling portrait of creation as an act of protest: the human body becomes a canvas, flesh and blood the medium of expression, society itself a battleground where all of mankind’s collective conflicts—conformity vs. individuality, the transcendent vs. the grotesque, the perverse vs. the sublime—are resolved (and occasionally reconciled).

Ultimately, Japanese Avant-Garde Pioneers is a competently crafted and well-reasoned visual essay/oral history, elevated by energetic editing and a propulsive soundtrack. I only wish that it was as radical, subversive, and transgressive as its thematically challenging subject matter.