60s Experiments

''From early sixties, though Japanese, Iimura was well known as one of the first generation of the New York Underground ... For many years, Japanese experimental film was Takahiko Iimura.''

(Malcolm Le Grice, Time Out, London)

Anthologie von Filmen aus den 60er Jahren:

Kuzu (Junks), 1962, (Musik von Takehisa Kosugi)
It's a mixture of (dead) animals, pieces of (broken) furniture, industrial waste, kids playing. I didn't have in mind any of the kind of historical perspective, nor was I trying to make an ecological statement. I was showing the new landscape of our civilization. My point of view was animistic. I tried to revive those dead animals metaphorically and to give the junk new life.

(Takahiko Iimura, ''An Interview with Taka Iimura'', Scott MacDonald, Journal of the University Film Association XXXIII, 4 (Fall 1981) - Quelle: http://www.takaiimura.com/work/Junk.html)

Ai (Love), 1962, (Musik von Yoko Ono)
The camera slides across the lovers, their bodies glowing under the glare of a single bulb. Takahiko Iimura's Ai (Love) is a frenzy of exploration - hands grip hair, fingers probe lips, planes of skin collide. In grainy ambiguous close-ups, Iimura films the entangled bodies with both passion and precision. Ai encapsulates the Japanese film maker's lifelong, concerns - a love of form, the dissection of subjects into their components, the communication between artist, subject, and audience.

(Karl Soehnlein, The Village Voice, March 27, 1990 - Source: http://www.takaiimura.com/work/Love.html)

On Eye Rape, 1962, (Co-Produktion Natsuyuki Nakanishi)
The second film [...] was made with footage I picked out of some trash. It was originally an educational film which recorded a plant growing out of the ground. The content isn't important. I punched almost all the frames with a puncher. I made big holes so that when it was projected, people could barely see what was originally in the frames. I didn't punch every fram; there was a lot of flicker from the holes. People got very annoyed and complained. They were afraid they would get hurt by the light. [...]

(Takahiko Iimura, ''An Interview with Taka Iimura'', Scott MacDonald, Journal of the University Film Association XXXIII, 4 (Fall 1981) - Quelle: http://www.takaiimura.com/work/Junk.html)

A Dance Party in the Kingdom of Lilliput, 1964
(The film) is related more to 'structuralist' films, the image of a naked man being presented as chapters; the sequence is like moving stills, or short statements conveyed by mean of gestures. Each sequence is preceded by a title. Just as a concrete poem consists of words grouped together according to sound, and not necessarily according to meaning, so in this film the image are grouped togehter according to how to look and not necessarily according to what they mean. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call what are generally known as 'structural' films 'concrete'.

(Stephen Dowskin, Film Is, 1975 - Source: http://www.takaiimura.com/work/Lliput.html)