Film: „Tokyo from Dawn till Dusk”

In this film dawn really awakens the city. People get up and we want to see it: how do the Japanese sleep? Then, the morning workout on the streets and squares – crowds of pedestrians bend, swing, jump up. An ordinary picture, although suddenly in the exercise group some naked sumo wrestlers turn up. Enormous and warm-hearted ones who exercise together with children and old men. This image duality is the most interesting. From the cam’s eye view any usual situations like a portrait show, a visit to the butcher or fortuneteller reveal another, mysterious meaning. Somewhere between frames, we can spot disaccord, distinction, and unavailability of this world despite the well-known and sometimes trivialized contours. The pieces of the film in which we can see the plot of collective memory referring to the world war’s nightmare or the recent disaster in Fukushima account for a strong counterpoint for ordinary scenes of Tokyo’s commonplaceness.