Japanese mythology!

What if Japan could help alleviate our eco-anxiety? That is just one of the bold premises behind Léo Favier’s documentary, Beauty and Collapse!

THE SUBJECT: A Western man discovers, through Japanese cinema, a way to better understand the world of today.

THE METHOD: A first-person singular narrative, images shot in Japan, the USA and Italy, sectioned chapters with titles and numbering, film excerpts and testimonials from figures including filmmakers Hirokazu Kore-eda, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Naomi Kawase, Wim Wenders and comic book author Catherine Meurisse.

BONUS: “Japan, a country that has found its way into our cultures” is how the narrator addresses the viewer, seeking to convey his fascination with Japan while providing a pretext for reflection on the future of the world. This sensitive documentary explores the question of one’s relationship with one’s region, akin to Naomi Kawase’s connection to Nara, which describes the feelings inspired by nature in her films. We learn a great deal about how nature permeates every level of Japanese lifestyle and art, including cinema. Godzilla is, of course, mentioned as a consequence of human actions, but this “non-living entity is endowed with a soul that takes animal form.” Indeed, for many Japanese people, objects also have a soul and a spirit. Some of them talk about ghosts and gods, in a non-religious sense, “an intermediate realm in which everyone can move freely” in Japan. Beauty and Collapse is an unconventional documentary that explores how the world outside influences cinema.

Virginie Apiou