Based on a structural and materialist approach towards the image, the experimental works of Toshio Matsumoto are based on the processes of encrustation, split, stratification or interlocking of close-ups whereby the images seem to be disintegrated, fragmented and recombined under ceaseless modulations in their frames, forms and colours. Though apparently related to the Western Structuralist method of image-making, these works are characterized by Oriental thought which emphasises the harmony between Man and Nature, in contrast to the Western view based largely on the presumed division between Man and Nature. Such an integral vision from the East is seen incarnated in the cosmic dimension recurrent in several of the artist's experimental pieces which elaborate upon the perceptual and sensual aspects of images and sounds involving elements such as water and air and is best represented in Ki or Breathing.

The Japanese word ki means air and breath, the basic element for the existence of all creatures. In Oriental thought, there exists also a kind of air within the entire universe; it circulates and sets the cosmos in motion. Ki or Breathing begins precisely with the image of a rotating planet covered with layered colours representing the layers of atmospheres. Throughout the video, we see various modalities of splitting images linked by close-ups and occasionally with pans. It is often a miniature view which shifts into a full-screen vision, like at the beginning of the first chapter of the video: a zoom-in closes in on the square at the centre showing a misty mountainous landscape, accompanied by a soundtrack of flute and sporadic sounds of bells, adding to the mysterious ambiance. What follows is a split-screen scene composed of two identical landscape views, yet the nuances of the flow of the fogs indicate that the images are actually slightly desynchronised.

The second chapter takes on a relatively impressionist tone in comparison to the geometric play of the first. After a few landscape scenes in full-screen then in encrustation whereby the same image in different sizes are set one within another, several close-ups focus on archaic stone figures of a somewhat disquieting character, stressing on the wide-open mouths of certain sculptures in their apparent immobility, thus creating a surreal effect. The stone figures are then shown juxtaposed in strips of almost identical images, filling the whole screen. The juxtaposition is difficult to decipher given the tight cluster and the overwhelming sameness of the sculptures, creating an overall feeling of hallucination.

As counterpoint to the petrified sculptures on earth, the next sequence shows moving clouds in the sky represented in a similar method of encrustation as aforementioned. Again, the persistent presence of the moving clouds is symbolic, just like in the split-screen image in the first chapter whereby it is only through the moving fogs that one perceives the passage of time against the immutable mountains, as well as the distinction between the twin images of cloud and mist – both states of air which signify in Ki or Breathing the essence of the universe and its motion, as well as the energy and force behind it.

Towards the end of the second chapter, the impressionist tone intensifies in the last full-screen scenes to show slow pans of a gloomy forest in a bluish hue, which then turns into a tableau reminiscent of Georges Seurat's pointillist painting. The contrast between light and shadow is radicalized to the extent of making the natural scene almost non-figurative, like a collage of light spots and other informal stains. The impression of colour and light is intensified in the third chapter whose imagery bears on the incessant changes and movements of the sea and the perpetual coming-and-going of its waves. While a ghostly female spirit from the previous chapters performing in the style of the Japanese ankoku butoh (a fusion of Japanese tradition with the avant-garde) is seen wading by the shore, the vast horizon behind her undergoes gradual changes in colour: the waves turn dark then red while the cloud banks turn bright and gorgeous orange, yellow and green.

Matsumoto, a pioneering Japanese experimental filmmaker, realised in the visual epic Ki or Breathing an array of visual experimentations that corresponds perfectly with constant change in the cosmos, however latent the latter may seem. The visual virtuosity is intensified and completed by the soundtrack of the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu who was heavily influenced by Claude Debussy and created a series entitled Waterscape containing scores under perpetual tonal metamorphosis. As a whole, the vision along with its soundscape in Ki or Breathing exemplifies Dominique Noguez comment on Japanese experimental cinema: “In Japanese films, the visible is a grace which we deserve, which we entrap with perseverance.” (Dans les films japonais, le visuel est une grâce qu'on mérite, qu'on piège avec persévérance.)

Sylvie Lin