| Watching the live broadcast of 9-11 on television, many people confessed that it looked "just like a film." In Baghdad, April 2003, American troops pulled the plug on Iraq's national television station, attempting to bring an end to the unashamed media war that was being waged. The world was flooded with media coverage. The media directs reality, multiplexing it. It weakens our bodily self-images and smudges our perceptions of distance between the outside world and ourselves. We have been robbed of our own reality, so at times we cut our wrists to remind ourselves that we're alive. Or sometimes we confine ourselves to our rooms when we can't face the world any longer. Or sometimes we search for mates who will commit suicide with us on the internet to give us a perspective of our own existence. But it can't be helped. After all we live in a society that pays homage to the shallow media god; where the war in Iraq, the appearance of a seal in the Tama River and the sudden marriage of a popular actor (Yosuke kubozuka) attract the same attention. The world is like watching the re-run of a burlesque acted out on a paper mache stage through the TV screen. Are you a spectator of the re-run, are you a member of the cast? In fact, are you really here at all? Sometimes it's difficult to tell. The events of September 11th, 2001, briefly created a fissure in this paper mache world. People who confessed to the event being "just like a film," enjoyed the experience of the ultimate documentary intensely. Their eyes lit up at images of mass-killings during the ensuing Afghanistan and Iraq wars. It was a bleak situation. The fissure in this paper mache world was just a new stage set. War became another form of entertainment vying for airtime with reality shows such as "Tonight's Live Broadcast of a Married Couple's Argument!" The meshed eye of the internet too has brought our privates lives and thoughts out into the open. The borders between inner and outer worlds have blurred. There are no absolute strangers anymore. Our real battlefield is the one upon which we fight to survive a hopeless battle against the information capitalist society where we can't win, lose, or go back. The world is akin to a cheap peep show. We are the voyeurs and at the same time, we are the models. I wanted this film to depict our trials and tribulations as we create new fissures in that peep show, leaving the peep show behind to encounter other people, attempting to reclaim our own realities. (Y.TSUCHIYA/September 2003) |
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