Following his excellent “Routine”, Takuya Miyahara's latest short, “Zen”, moves into a completely different direction, by implementing an approach that lingers between “Tetsuo” and Masaharu Take's “The Gun”, and not only due to the black-and-white cinematography.
“Zen” review is part of the Submit Your Film Initiative
A newspaper guy rides his motorcycle in the night and ascends the stairs of a building, delivering them to the subscribers. When he is done, the crack of dawn is already upon him. A young woman looks from the balcony of the same building at the same time. Their gazes meet after a point, and he averts his, looking guilty of something. A man appears next to her and hugs her; she is not complaining, but is not exactly enjoying his embrace. In the next scene, the newspaper man is lying on his bed listening music on his headphones. He begins fantasizing about the girl, in a scene that justifies his shyness before. The music and sound increase, before a cut brings us to his path towards the building once more. This time, however, he sees the aforementioned man chasing the girl on the street, catching her and violently pulling her towards the building. The newspaper guy decides to act. We are not sure what is going on, but the sound communicates that something violent is happening. The aftermath confirms the fact.
Takuya Miyahara directs an almost completely dialogue-less, black-and-white film that thrives on its atmosphere, particularly on the way he builds-up the story and its aesthetics. The initial calm gives its place to some tension, when he is lying on his bed, next an element of mystery is included, eventually leading to violence before calmness comes once again. The main mediums of this approach are the excellent editing, but even more so the impressive work done in the music by Keisuke Miyazaki and Ryoga Hatakeyama and the overall approach towards the sound, which essentially deems the lack of dialogue something barely one notices. Gaku Murakami's cinematography is another essential component, with the shaky handheld camera focusing on the face of the newspaper guy changing the overall “regular” approach, while inducing the short with a sense of speed, and also adding to the tension. These three elements are also the main ingredients of the references mentioned in the prologue, with Miyahara having “embedded” them in his film rather nicely.
Tomoya Oshima as the paper guy and Narumi Sakurai as the girl also seem to have adapted to the narrative style to perfection, with his shyness and her apathy creating a rather appealing antithesis, which changes completely when he decides to act. Their sole interaction is also rather amusing, in a style that will remind of Charlie Chaplin movies. The finale, on the other hand, seems to justify the title completely, in a “life goes on” type of ending that is also amusing in a way.
“Zen” is an impressively shot short film, which is bound to satisfy fans of the aforementioned filmmakers.
