A Shape of Time - the composer Jo Kondo (2016) [N/A]
Release Date:
March 18, 2016
Original Title:
A Shape of Time - the composer Jo Kondo
Genres:
Documentary
Production Companies:
Viola Rusche & Hauke Harder
Production Countries:
Germany
Ratings / Certifications:
N/A
Runtime: 100
Jo Kondo (*1947) is one of the most interesting composers of contemporary music in Japan. His music is composed intuitively and at the same time it is highly abstract. Without clear directionality and at the same time not without form. For a Japanese audience it sounds “Western” and in the West it is regarded “Japanese”. A music in between categories. Like Kondo’s music the film is shifting between places and directions: a concert in the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam, an elaborate sushi bar in Tokyo, a CD-production in a Cologne radio station, the Zuisenji temple in Kondo’s neighborhood in Kamakura. Kondo wants his music to appear “normal”, without spectacular surface or narrative elements. A concept of “normality” you may also find in the films of Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu, who – like Kondo – spent most of his life in Kamakura.