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Short Film Review: Transparent, I am. (2020) by Yuri Muraoka

An approach that is sincere, evocative, original and frequently brutal, but most of all, visually stunning.

Winner of the Grand Prize at International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, “Transparent, I am.” is a film essay focusing on the rather intense experiences of the director, who is a mother of two but also suffers from schizophrenia.

“Transparent, I am.” is screening on International Short Film Festival Oberhausenand is also available through the This Is Short Platform

implements an experimental approach, where the narrating voice is combined with animation, drawings from one of her daughters, video/found footage and still images, with the two different elements occasionally telling completely different stories. In that fashion, as we hear her voice describing the experience of spending time in a hospital, after a failed suicide attempt (a fact that becomes evident a bit later though), we see images of a liquid flowing fast, and the sun light coming from afar, through the clouds, through the window, and finally through to the screen. At the same time, Muraoka shares some of her darker and more intimate thoughts, as we hear her stating that she is feeling lonely and meaningless.

The next part focuses on the nurse in the hospital, which the director seems to remember she was wearing a light blue shadow on her eyes. The fact inspires some other thought for her, as some of the experiences she had in the hospital, of the nurse giving her a book to read or a piece of paper and a pen to write, emerging as figments of her imagination. At the same time, the images on screen focus on eyes, with close ups to a pair of real ones with a light blue shadow on, but also a pair without, and pencil drawn sketches, while the filmmaker is pondering about her existence and her reality. The description of a bird dying grotesquely and a painting of a woman wearing a covid mask where the lips are dripping blood above the mask gives a rather horrid turn to the film, as Muraoka presents the violent thoughts of a schizophrenic, along with some sequences of a broken glass, which seems to signify the tool she used to commit suicide.

The next part includes video recordings of her and her family, while some of the names mentioned before are revealed to be theirs: Nonoho is her husband, Hana and Nemu her daughters. The crisis she experienced after the birth of her first daughter is juxtaposed with a description of the sex that led to her getting pregnant to Nemu, while images of fireworks appear on screen. Once more, the image of the sun showing from afar appears, which seems to signify that the “light” that will end her “darkness” is visible, but at the same time, quite far.

The reactions of her family who were angry for her crises and her suicide attempt are also mentioned, with the director highlighting that everyone were angry at her, telling her she is a bad person, probably talking about her parents. A rather fast and intense piano music begins to play after this part, while images of Muraoka recording with her phone are combined with various visuals “playing” on a white mask on a painting of face. This part has the aesthetics of a horror film, with the figures appearing on screen, her intent eyes being directed straight at the camera, the frantic editing and the music creating a sense of angst, which seems to mirror the psychological experience the director had when having schizofrenic episodes. Fire from candles, a cat lying, a cross, and her making a frame with her fingers close the part.

The words of her daughter, “you are in so much pain and you want to die, you can die, but your life belongs to you” add an even more dramatic essence to the movie, as Muraoka is embarrassed for making her think such thoughts.

The narrative comes full circle, both in image and narration next, while a painting placed on a colorful marble wall concludes the short.

Extremely rich in its presentation, Yuri Muraoka's effort may be experimental, but the power that emits from every image and every word is more than palpable. The sincerity with which she presents the darker thoughts of an occasionally sick mind, the reactions of the people around her as her grip to reality loosened, her inner thoughts about the concept of existence, her love for her children and her husband are all presented through an approach that is sincere, evocative, original and frequently brutal, but most of all, visually stunning.

About the author

Panos Kotzathanasis

My name is Panos Kotzathanasis and I am Greek. Being a fan of Asian cinema and especially of Chinese kung fu and Japanese samurai movies since I was a little kid, I cultivated that love during my adolescence, to extend to the whole of SE Asia.

Starting from my own blog in Greek, I then moved on to write for some of the major publications in Greece, and in a number of websites dealing with (Asian) cinema, such as Taste of Cinema, Hancinema, EasternKicks, Chinese Policy Institute, and of course, Asian Movie Pulse. in which I still continue to contribute.

In the beginning of 2017, I launched my own website, Asian Film Vault, which I merged in 2018 with Asian Movie Pulse, creating the most complete website about the Asian movie industry, as it deals with almost every country from East and South Asia, and definitely all genres.

You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

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