Strip away the politics and the grander discourses resonating from their collective cerebral cortex, movies engross and enchant; molding and inspiring younger impressionable minds, the cinematic audiovisual experience is an exhilarating tour-de-force of mind-bending effects and inimitable panache. Sat in a movie theatre with eyes glued to the screen awash in pure wonderment is the future, a myriad of potential creatives who will never forget their first time of becoming speechless at the big screen. It is a fertile time when untamed and unfiltered bewilderment possesses those hearts and minds in lieu of the irrational realities that will one day take its place for so many. For Kazuya Konaka, nothing would ever be the same again once he would emerge from a movie theater in 1978 after witnessing a groundbreaking achievement in the arts, filled with hopes of one day fulfilling his own; with ‘Single8' Konaka relives a time of vivid imagination at the precipice of his own maturity.
Single8 is screening at Nippon Connection
So awestruck are they by the technological marvels of George Lucas' ‘Star Wars', that best friends Hiroshi (Yu Uemura) and Yoshio (Noa Fukuzawa) set out to recreate its iconic opening spectacle, complete with their own handmade Star Destroyer and rudimentary ingenuity to visual effects. Attracting the intrigue of film-student clerk Terao (Yusuke Sato) who develops the film, Hiroshi pitches shooting a film just like Star Wars for his class' contribution to the school's cultural festival. Initially derided by their classmates they, with the help of Sasaki (Ryuta Kuwuyama), soon win them over, including Natsumi (Akari Takaishi) whom they cast as the heroine. From here on, ‘Single8' follows the four students from the genesis to completion of their film ‘Time-Reverse', in which a sentient alien ship sent to Earth to reverse time to correct mankind's mistakes
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A coming-of-age story veiled as a love-letter to movie-making, ‘Single8' wears it passions on its sleeve, following its cast as they mature from avid enthusiasts to storytellers in their own right. Director Kazuya Konaka, of whose teenage years the film is based on, captures their passions and determination with an inquisitive zeal, yearning for each new hurdle to reveal itself – whether it is the constraints of their diminutive budget or correcting the mirrored imagery resulting in shooting footage upside down – and be imaginatively solved as a growing collective. As Hiroshi's influences begin to dissolve into the background throughout the films runtime, his visionary ideas and that of his cohorts are given space to grow on their own, resulting in a witty, endearing, and inventive final piece with a message as poignant back in 1978 as it is today.
Despite its narrative taking as linear a route as possible, chaptered by each stage in the filmmaking process and the painstaking lengths Hiroshi and his crew go to finish his film, resulting in pure exhaustion by the end, it is the gleeful goofiness and unbridled relatability both Uemura and Fukuzawa bring to their characters that enriches ‘Single8' with a childlike wonderment. A first watch of both this and Hiroshi's film strikes the same way watching ‘Star Wars' for the first time did for him, speaking to an inner voice long quelled for many by the realities of an adulthood. From its most captivating moment – pitching their idea to the class and ultimately to Natsumi, undecided in her role – Hiroshi, Yoshio, and Sasaki's transformation from geeky outcasts to charismatic fellows whose classmates are hanging on their every word, Konaka's film negates homage and sentimentality for something inherently personal, both for him and for his audience.
Keeping this film as pleasant as possible, Kenichi Aikawa's streamlined cinematography grows in time with its subjects, ascertaining their impending maturity as the movie's focus as much as Akira Matsuki's impeccable editing allows the friendships on screen to blossom. At the film's core however is a love for practical visual effects, itself embellished on screen as a reminder of a time before the internet schooled people in the art; there is no how-to manual at hand, and delight only grows in watching Hiroshi and Yoshio find innovative solutions to their own effects, from accomplishing their Star Destroyer shot right up to landing the alien spaceship at the heart of their own film. For Konaka and former Godzilla visual effects helmsman Osamu Izumiya, a vast amount of care and attention goes into deploying and mastering the DIY effects seen throughout the student's film.
Viewing this film as simply a love-letter to filmmaking, or a time when filmmaking is much simpler, is shortsighted. At a time when “geekiness” has proliferated in pop culture, when cinema and television has become dominated by the likes of comic-book adaptations and Star Wars itself, this endearing monument to youthful aspirations is a pleasant, harmless reminder of where this domination once sprung from: in our bedrooms. Projected onto walls, through play, through fumbling from one idea to the next, the imaginations sparked by those bombardment of images and sounds have cyclically reshaped cultural discourse with each new generation. Much like Mr Maruyama, ‘Single8' pleasantly reminds us to never stifle the creative voice for it is something to be nurtured; otherwise, we are to be bereft of more films like ‘Time Reverse'.
