Ryuichi Sakamo­to: Coda

Codas give a sense of final­i­ty, of sat­is­fac­tion with the course the notes have tak­en. It is a fit­ting title for Stephen Nomo­ra Schible’s ten­der por­trait of Japan­ese com­pos­er Ryuichi Sakamo­to, whose mind’s eye is ever-fixed on the fragili­ty of nature. His expe­ri­ence of can­cer has height­ened his con­cerns with radi­a­tion and has made envi­ron­men­tal­ism intrin­sic to his music. The film strives, and large­ly suc­ceeds, to rep­re­sent this bal­ance visu­al­ly through its sharp per­cep­tion of humanity’s rela­tion­ship with the world.

The open­ing shots are haunt­ing­ly devoid of sound as the cam­era sweeps over land­scapes scarred by tsunamis and nuclear bombs. They are inter­rupt­ed by a rap­tur­ous ren­di­tion of Sakamoto’s theme to Nag­isa Oshima’s Mer­ry Christ­mas Mr Lawrence, blur­ring the atroc­i­ties of World War Two with his for­ma­tive ​’80s style. Protest gives the 66-year old an infec­tious ener­gy, and as the focus moves to the composer’s dai­ly rit­u­als, a dis­tinct musi­cal­i­ty emerges in life’s mun­dan­i­ty. The rain pound­ing on trees out­side main­tains a sparkle in his eye even as he swal­lows pills and brush­es his weak­ened gums.

Schi­ble is deeply respect­ful of his sub­ject, nev­er prob­ing beyond the bound­aries set by Sakamo­to, the sole inter­vie­wee. Rather than pre­sent­ing a nar­row per­spec­tive, suf­fi­cient under­stand­ing is gath­ered from tales of his col­lab­o­ra­tions with a pletho­ra of esteemed direc­tors. Be it the move­ment of water in Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1971 sci-fi Solaris, or the fierce iso­la­tion of 2015’s The Revenant by Ale­jan­dro G Iñár­ritu, Sakamo­to is over­whelmed by their appre­ci­a­tion of the sub­lime. Real­i­ty and cin­e­ma com­bine seam­less­ly as edi­tor Hisayo Kushi­da tran­si­tions from stu­dio record­ings to film clips that out­line an eclec­tic career.

Here Sakamo­to demon­strates his own con­nec­tion to nature. He sits in the for­est and pon­ders bird­song, and is seen ​“fish­ing the sound” from pools of melt­ing snow in the Arc­tic Cir­cle. There is a uni­ty in chaos that he hopes to chan­nel through his com­po­si­tions, to dis­cern har­mo­ny from dis­so­nance and blend the two in song. By explor­ing his pas­sions and dri­ves, Schi­ble has giv­en mean­ing beyond the sur­face to Sakamoto’s music. It makes for fas­ci­nat­ing view­ing, and even more beau­ti­ful listening.