Sion Sono
dir. Sion Sono
Japan 1997, 61’
Subtitles: Polish
Screenings
03.10.2023, 20:00
Cinema Muranów
After the death of her father, waitress Suzuki Keiko (played by Suzuki Keiko, whose delicate voice is absolutely hypnotizing) lives alone. Her bright apartment, with its red walls and yellow furniture, is like a work of art. She becomes obsessed with time, and eventually starts to believe that human life can be measured with an ordinary wristwatch. After 8,036 days (or 192,864 hours), her 22nd birthday looms. Keiko decides, in the name of her life and death, to record, in as much detail as possible, the three weeks separating her from the ominous date.
In I Am Keiko, the heroine, looking straight at her audience, describes her everyday activities. She chooses outfits, hairstyles, and wigs, combining them into compositions with magically colourful accessories and fripperies. The whole time she is methodically counting down, dividing her life into brief moments, but at the same time celebrating each one of them, lending them unexpected weight and charm.
Sono Shion
Sion Sono’s early film I Am Keiko was created for audiences seeking an atmospheric cinema of beautiful images and rich, subtle tones. It is also a film for those with an interest in art, design, and film fashions. The set design lures us back to the postwar world. Using objects representing the highest refinement in international artistic design, the director, half in jest, references a new vision of interior decoration created both in the West and in Japan by eminent artists. I Am Keiko is not a critique of elite consumptionism, however; on the contrary, it is a paeon to things, an apotheosis of object przedmiotowości.
At the beginning and end of the film, we are informed that: “This film will end in 1 hour, 1 minute, and 1 second.” The showing starts, its central character tells us, late in the afternoon, at 19:22, and reaches its finale at 20:23. Its contemplative, unhurried, poetic ambience is built up by details of this sort, which will delight viewers who appreciate the charm of a world composed of minutiae.
Production team
director: Sion Sono
screenplay: Sion Sono
camera: Won On-ling
cast: Suzuki Keiko
producer: Yoshida Shunji
language: Japanese
colour/ BW: colour
