One Piece!

In recent years Yaguchi Shinobu and Suzuki Takuji regularly worked with a trusty group of actors in their back gardens and apartments testing their creativity. Their self-imposed limitations – ‘Home video: no zoom, no pan, editing or sound post-production; one scene, one shot’ – resulted in the film One Piece! They are fourteen short films which make the best possible use of the restrictions, but which also clearly show their love of this simple film-making. What is expressed by One Piece! is most reminiscent of the punk adage that everyone who can play three chords can start a band: anyone with a video camera can make a film. At first sight, One Piece! comprises fragments from films that only have their form and dry humorous ‘jokes’ in common. They are fourteen situations in which one of the characters usually ends up in a sticky and bizarre situation. On an odd occasion, the subject is just plain absurd, but the limited structure always works for the benefit of the story. You never know what will turn up just off screen. But the resemblance to punk stretches further: the films clearly sense what Japanese young people want. Because through all the humour, slapstick and nonsense, Yaguchi and Suzuki provide with their ‘super-duper small-sized films’ a wonderful idea of the world view of Japanese youth. (G.T.)