Something to watch tonight: Wednesday 1 May

Tokyo-ga (Wenders, 1985)

Editor’s note

Yesterday, in an egregious example of uncorrected autopredicted text, I wrote: “… I am not delighted to recommend this one to you, too.”

That should have read “I am delighted” and I hope you have read enough of these newsletters to know that’s what I meant.

Tokyo-ga is another in the ‘we love Wim Wenders’ category,

If you watched Perfect Days earlier this year on my recommendation, you will enjoy this documentary about Wenders’ first journey to Japan in the early 80s.

Ostensibly, he is there to track down surviving collaborators of Yasujirō Ozu (Late Spring, Tokyo Story, etc.) but he is overwhelmed by the strangeness of the culture and the transitions that Japan is clearly going though.

There are some delightful segments: the factory that makes the waxwork food models that are displayed outside restaurants, Pachinko parlours and skyscraping golf driving ranges, rock and roll fashion, and perplexing (to a Western eye) attitudes to garbage and waste.

An unexpected highlight is a cameo from Wenders’ pal Werner Herzog who, while viewing the city from the top of the Tokyo Tower, remains fixated on his own very personal quest for the ‘perfect image’.

But Wenders – as did Ozu and, indeed, this household – loves trains and so you can easily get lost in the long transition sequences of Japanese public transport and its complex, endless, interconnectedness.

---

---

Where to watch Tokyo-ga