A lost 1966 fever dream that sat in a vault for 51 years. Reality optional.
Noh mask maker is unable to carve the young Noh masks he has ordered, and when a beautiful woman invites him to join her in town for a change of pace, he has a mysterious experience, which may be a dream or reality. The film "Genjitsu" (幻日) was completed in the autumn of 1966, but has not been shown to the public. Adapted from Soseki Natsume's novel "Ten Nights of Dreams" with experimental music by Joji Yuasa, the film was long considered lost but re-surfaced in 2017 and was shown for the first time at Kobe Planet Film Archive.
Direction
Takechi's avant-garde theatre roots collapse stage and screen.
Score
Joji Yuasa's electronic experiments scrape your nerves raw.
Production
Rediscovered 2017—this ghost finally reached daylight.
Director
Tetsuji Takechi
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Takechi was primarily an erotic film director; this austere Noh adaptation was wildly out of character, possibly why it was buried.
Natsume Soseki's 'Ten Nights of Dreams' (1908) was already surrealist before surrealism reached Japan—this adaptation honors that temporal dislocation.
JP
