Laurent Fiévet

The Saijiki ( 歳時記) video series – which designates in Japanese a kind of almanac or dictionary for the use of the editors of haiku – intersects the structures of nine films of Yasujirō Ozu made mainly between the end of the forties and the beginning of the sixties and whose titles evoke the passage of the seasons : Late Spring (晩春, Banshun, 1949), Early Summer (麦秋, Bakushu, 1951), Early Spring (早春, Soshun, 1956), Equinox Flower (彼岸花, Higanbana, 1958), Floating Weeds (浮草, Ukikusa, 1959)and its 1934 model A Story of Floating Weeds (浮草物語, Ukikusa monogatari), Late Autumn (秋日和, Akibiyori, 1960), The End of Summer (小早川家の秋, Kohayagawake no aki) and An Autumn afternoon (秋刀魚の味, Sanma no aji, 1962). It offers a incomplete memory of the various films mentioned which contributes both to identify the narrative structures and to point out the formal extreme coherence of the Ozuian aesthetics of the period.

As in several previous series (like Ice, Swing High, Swing Low, Vexations or Dislocated), the aesthetics of editing remain one of the central questions addressed in the series. This is clinically observed as a point of balance and tilting, proceeding by tiny movements.

The series exists in three proposals: the Kigo installation (季語) which offers a incomplete memory of the various films mentioned in a minimalist approach that can recall the Ten sound series, the Wagara series (和柄) which, while opening the field to other films made between 1949 and 1962 – such as The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice (お茶漬の味, Ochazuke no aji, 1952), Tokyo story (東京物語, Tōkyō monogatari, 1953), Tokyo Twilight (東京暮色, Tōkyō boshoku, 1957) and Good Morning (お早う, Ohayō, 1959) – dwells on a certain number of recurring motifs in the art of Ozu, and the Kintsugi editings (金継ぎ), operating on the same film corpus and principle of the diptych as Wagara, which confront very close film shots to provoke effects of déjà vu.