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The Criterion Channel Presents: Ryuichi Sakamoto| Opus (2023)

I have not seen a concert film, as far as that label goes, more moving and transcendent than Ryuichi Sakamoto| Opus. I question the designation because, as a film that features no visible audience whom its subject is performing for, it doesn’t really feel like a concert film -even though it is nearly two hours of musical performance from one of the most impressive and acclaimed international artists of the last half-century. You wouldn’t know that reputation from just seeing this film and its extremely humble aesthetics -it’s pretty much just the man at a piano in a studio. But that is part of its fundamental beauty and its heart-wrenching effect, besides the utter splendour of the music he performs.
I swear I’m not just making this series into a Criterion New Releases showcase, but their streaming première of Opus was something I just couldn’t resist spotlighting. Ryuichi Sakamoto was obviously a legend and I’ve adored his music, and the narrative of this film was just too compelling. Directed by his son Neo Sora, Opus was filmed in late 2022, while Sakamoto was deep in the throes of his battle with cancer. In March 2023, he passed away from it. This was what he in all likelihood knew to be his last performance, and it was captured here on film, for posterity and closure.
That sense of weight hangs over the whole movie, Sora seemingly consciously honing in on the subtext as his dad plays some works he hasn’t touched in years. Unlike your average concert film, this one is intimate, as the camera stays close on its subject -distinctly spotlighted; special care and attention paid to his hands on the keys, the almost organic movements of the gears of the piano (as though it and Sakamoto are one), and the rapt focus on his lined but intent face. This isn’t just a movie that reveres its artist, but also deeply his craft, his relationship to his devices of music and the music itself. And all of the above are profound.
The film is shot starkly in black and white with no artifice, and cleanly, simply edited in a way that feels uniquely authentic and live. Often a concert film is cut together from a handful of shows for practical purposes, but here that doesn’t seem to be the case. Every track bleeds into each other with no individual fanfare, like it’s all one work that jointly sums up his career. At one point, Sakamoto finds himself struggling with the notes to “Aqua”, an especially gorgeous piece from his 1999 album BTTB, resurrected recently as part of his final score for Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Monster. In the only line spoken in the movie, he requests and is granted permission to start over. No other music film would show the musician make a mistake like this -if it happens it is almost always edited out to preserve their image; Sora keeps it in, because the genius of his father is not in question here. It only emphasizes his strain -an effect of his illness, and the bittersweet fact that he is performing through it regardless.
Opus is not a chronological journey through his career, nor a Greatest Hits compilation; it seems rather curated to pieces that are meaningful to him, and as such are imbued with his passion as he performs them. And yet they do flow in a very serene way, tonally reflecting themes of his life, as their general air goes from radiantly spirited and bright to meditative and melancholy, ultimately ending in the most thematically appropriate place.
The journey there is sensational. I hadn’t heard most of the pieces he performed before, but individually and collectively they are entrancing to listen to -sweet, evocative, stupendous pieces that speak with power to his compositional brilliance. It’s the kind of music that is hypnotizing, all the more so in this kind of presentation. “The Wuthering Heights” is in there and “The Sheltering Sky”, of course he touches on his Oscar-winning motifs of The Last Emperor, but at the very end, and after a dramatic fade to black in pause for the grand finale, he plays his masterpiece -the theme from Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. It is a buoyant piece of music, but tinged with a distinct melancholy, as representative of that film. It feels right to go out on this, and Sakamoto playing it for the final time gives it his all, his head moving in rhythm, his frame electric -as though fused to the piano. It’s really very emotional. This is much more than a concert film, it is a parting gift from Sakamoto and his family, a cogent final expression of his passion. An artistic Opus to live forever.

Criterion Recommendation: All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (2023)
Sometimes it’s enough for Criterion to exist just to provide physical releases for movies that wouldn’t be given one otherwise. But Raven Jackson’s directorial debut All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt deserves it more than most. That it remains trapped on streaming is a travesty for one of the most purely breathtaking movies of the last several years. I wouldn’t ordinarily go this hard for a movie I only saw about seven months ago, but it is such a powerful one. The considered chronicle of a black woman’s childhood through to old age in rural Mississippi, told largely in mood and dialogue-free snapshots of loves and life events, is one of the most astounding and intuitive cinematic experiments in recent memory. The themes and motifs that Jackson hones in on so astutely in her captivating imagery of dirt and light and most prominently hands hearkens to symbols of history and heritage, of a culture and a family that won’t be swept aside by the currents of time; time, which the film has incredible respect and reverence for. It is a mesmerizing film like few I have ever seen, and Criterion ought to leap on it as soon as it can.

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