Exhibition in Hara Museum of Contemporary Art (原美術館), Tokyo
10/Sep -11/Dec/2011
This is the second half of my reflection on the exhibition on Invisible Memory.
Koizumi's second video in the exhibition is 'Portrait of a Young Samurai' (2009). The artist's metafictional approach continues to characterize this work: in the video the director coaches a young actor to enact a kamikaze fighter at the moment before he departs for a suicidal mission. After several takes, the young actor's mild-manneredness still falls short of the expectation of the director who insists on seeing a more powerful outburst of emotion and a more compelling expression of physical response. The video documents how the young actor matures in his role as a kamikaze samurai and manages to cry out his valediction speech with tears and mucus all over his face.
To foreigners, kamikaze samurai is probably one of the most distinguished forms of nationalism in Japanese history. They were thought to have braved the destiny of suicidal task, and the courage and the spirit that they demonstrated were more or less the extreme display of loyalty. 'Portrait of a Young Samurai', however, is concerned with the fear and emotion hidden beneath such a daring act.
Is this patriotic form of courage innate to every human beings? Or, is it a behaviour that one is taught to do? I think through the metaphor of 'coaching and acting', 'Portrait' deconstructs this image of bravery in order to explore this issue of patriotic love.
On one level, the young actor is 'coached' to perform that particular moment, but the emotion that the director envisions is not quite the love for a nation but an immense fear of a foreseen destiny -- death. In the valediction speech, the kamikaze samurai's fear overshadows and undermines every statement that seeks to justify his unbidden farewell. Here the patriotic love is discoloured in contrast with the samurai's overwhelming anxiety over abandoning his beloved family for a planned death.
One might be nurtured to love a country, but fear is human, natural and instinctual.
The director's metafictional approach by getting himself involved in the narrative and getting himself in the shot suggests a vantage point from which viewers are able to see how such passion and courage can be as simple, and as complicated, as acting. It is simple because such emotional reaction can be achieved through performance; it is complex because the ideals of such passion run against one's real wishes.
Patriotism can be performed when it is needed, when it is wanted, and when it is useful. Being patriotic is probably not so much an instinct as a shared cultural memory. The memory may root deep, but it has to be recalled repeatedly in order to keep it alive in all those who share the same culture.
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Last December, I came across a German news program about technicians working in Fukushima nuclear power plant after its meltdown in 311 earthquake in 2011. The report uncovers the anger, fear, desolation, and discontent of those Fukushima fighters -- modern samurais in this context -- an aspect of their life that sharply contradicts their silence and determination that Japanese media used to portray.
German TV-channel ZDF talks with workers at Fukushima Dai-ichi
(german, english subs)
(For English subtitles, watch the video on
Youtube and press cc button on the control bar.)
I was remembering 'Portrait' and comparing the artwork and the reality. I was thinking about how this forced love for one's country was mixed with fear and anxiety, how this notion of patriotism has driven us to tolerate injustice and blinded us to all wrongs, and how we will repeat same mistakes in the future in the name of patriotic love.
