point of contact

DOSSIER 2006
The official online publication of the
Syracuse International Film Festival, Vol.3
A Point of Contact Production

Adan, Japan
Sho Igarashi, Director
(139 minutes)

Film Review by Nancy Keefe Rhodes

A dramatic rendering of the life of heretic Japanese painter Isson Tanaka, Adan stars Japan’s prolific screen and TV actor Takaaki Enoki in the title role. Enoki’s acting is at first jarring, being considerably more stylized than that of the other cast members. But over the course of the three decades that the film’s story spans – and this is a lengthy film at two and a half hours – the fervor of both the actor and his subject have enveloped and persuaded us, and we see more of the artistic process than is usual in such efforts.

Adan is lushly filmed and follows a fairly simple trajectory, dividing its tale into five pivotal moments in Tanaka’s life when he chooses to follow his calling. In 1948, this promising painter’s second painting was selected for show under the competitive, tightly controlled system in which a mere nod from the exhibition master steers careers for life. When the master dismisses his work, Tanaka vows never to sell his work. His older sister Kimiko believes in and supports him. His art school friend Araki, who achieves great popular success, maintains connection.

In 1956, after a vivid sequence in which we share Tanaka’s education in game-cock fighting, he produces an astonishing series of paintings and drawings of the birds. Instead of promoting himself, he uses one painting to pay his physician and departs for the distant sea island of Amami, home to a leper colony. There, the artist works, intimately exploring rocky jungle streams, sketching hip-deep in ocean surf, executing a series of studies based on a blue fish given him by an islander, and visited by a mysterious girl named Aden who runs by him on the island paths. Eventually he paints her and her image sustains him.

In 1965, Araki confesses his own despair at fame’s emptiness and Tanaka’s sister dies. The later segments – the winter of 1969 and the summer of 1977 – address his struggle to continue his work. A young potter employs Tanaka to watch his shop and he enjoys some measure of respect from the islanders. Tanaka hears of Araki’s suicide and despairs he never brought Araki with him to the island.

Although we see much painting, Igarashi spends more time on the frail, older Tanaka’s solitary treks into the island’s wild interior and his impetuous climbs up giant rocks. He seeks his subjects and also the elusive Ruddy Kingfisher, a bird whose nearby song tantalizes him through the years. We come to fear for Tanaka, and to view the artist’s own life as a piece of art that is ever in danger of breaking from rough or careless handling. Part of Japanese spiritual practice dictates that art be used instrumentally – hence such things as tea ceremonies – thus evoking mindfulness by the very fragility of irreplaceable objects. The question of how well-used one’s own life is lingers long after the film.