Taiko
drumming isn’t just music, it is also spectacle. If you doubt it, check out
Yako Miyamoto and her taiko drumming dance troupe, COBU (really, you should).
They fused taiko with tap, other modern dance forms, and martial arts, creating
a dazzling synthesis. They were able to reinterpret those traditional forms
because of musicians like the Ondekoza ensemble, who came together to keep
taiko alive and vital in 1969. Yakuza auteur Tai Kato documents the training
and performances of a fresh batch of recruits in the criminally under-released
and under-screened documentary The
Ondekoza
(trailer here),
which looks terrific in the new 4K restoration that premieres in America during
the 2017 Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film in New York.
The
Ondekoza (or Za Ondekoza) live and train communally, much like military personnel.
In fact, when Kato follows the newbies as they take their daily jog around Sado
island, you almost expect to hear them chant: “I don’t know but I’ve been told,
taiko drumming makes you bold.” We get some sense of the young performers’
personalities, especially when they start to make their costumes. However, the
real guts of the film are several stunningly filmed performances.
Frankly,
Ondekoza compares quite closely to
the eternally gorgeous Calle 54,
especially Keiji Maruyama’s absolutely stunning cinematography. This is truly
bravura, auterist filmmaking, featuring lush backdrops, artful visual
composition, and incredibly dramatic but assured jump cuts.
It
is not just taiko either. Ondekoza was founded to preserve and revitalize
traditional Japanese music, such as the climatic solo shamisen performance,
which ranks up the with Hoichi the Earless in Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan as one of the most cinematic
shamisen performances ever. Although not quite as innovative as Miyamoto and
COBU, Ondekoza also perform in more modern contexts, with groups like the
Downtown Boogie Woogie Band, who were more 1970s funk than Meade Lux Lewis
barrel house. Yet, it is when Ondekoza reconnect with tradition that they sound
their best, such the starkly powerful human bunraku number.
