Yamanaka tokiwa

The film narrator – off screen, but in house – was allocated an important role in the early phase of cinema: he read out the intertitles, summarized the story, commented on the plot. While this form of verbal silent film accompaniment soon died out in many places, these live explanations remained an important part of the film experience, primarily in Asian and African countries. Today, this tradition is being taken up and varied by different artists – as could be seen and heard recently at Archival Assembly #3. YAMANAKA TOKIWA makes reference to the specific Japanese form of the film narrator. The film translates twelve 400-year-old scrolls into a cinematic form: the puppet theatre story of Lady Tokiwa, who is murdered by bandits on her way to her samurai son in Yamanaka, becomes “animated”. One essential element of this artistic transfer is the recitative ballad with a shamisen accompaniment that almost seems to make the world of images move. (mg)