电影就是记录生命-土本典昭的工作

中文字幕翻译：季丹
这部影片是一幅土本典昭的人物肖像。自1963年发表处女作《蒸汽火车驾驶助理》之后，土本一生共拍摄过多部电影，包括实验性和前卫性并存的《在路上》等，以及17部著名的水俣病系列。本片中不仅有对土本导演创作历程和创作思想的访谈，还使用了《水俣病患者及其世界》以及《不知火海》等的影像，与再访水俣的土本导演的晚年的影像交织而成。影片不仅记录了土本电影中出现的患者的现在，还记录了长期关注水俣病的土本导演对历史的思考，以及不断追寻纪录之意义的土本典昭的探索，更是一代年轻作者和大师面对面的交谈。
Minamata. This work follows Tsuchimoto to present-day Minamata, while incorporating footage from the Minamata series, including Minamata: The Victims and Their World (1971) and The Shiranui Sea (1975), as well as the director’s comments on the filming of his pre-Minamata works An Engineer’s Assistant (1963) and Document: On the Road (1964). This film confronts Tsuchimoto as he continues to question the significance of documenting and reflects on the present lives of patients depicted in past films and the (presumably) incomplete history of Minamata. And this young filmmaker’s intentions are . . .
—from the YIDFF ’07 official catalog

当我准备拍摄一部关于土本典昭的电影时，我所拥有的素材，是土本典昭所拍摄的电影和背负着这些记忆的土本典昭现在的脸。然后是30年前土本所拍摄的水俣的影像，以及现在的水俣，和记录土本典昭故地重游的我的摄影机。
摄影机是一个残酷的机器。虽然我可以决定镜头的取舍，但画面中记录的，却是妳无法掌控的生命原貌。没有一点情感的机械眼（电影眼）所铭刻的，是土本拍摄电影的那个时代和现代之间流逝的无法追回的时间以及时代的变化。
那些逝去的年代，是1970年出生的我所陌生的。因此这部电影，谨献给在土本导演拍摄水俣电影的70年代，初为人父母的我的父母，和包括我父母在内的，书写了日本战后历史的人们。
Director’s Statement：
When I decided to make a film about Tsuchimoto Noriaki, the materials available were the films that Tsuchimoto made in the past, and Tsuchimoto’s own face in the present, bearing the memories of these pasts. And now I have the images of Minamata as documented by Tsuchimoto over thirty years ago, and my camera documenting Tsuchimoto walking in Minamata today.
The camera is a cruel machine. We may control what is in the frame, but the lives as seen through that frame are captured mechanically as they are. The irreversible passing of time between these two eras, the changes the world has gone through, are engraved mercilessly in the cold-hearted Kino Glaz.
I myself, born in 1970, know so little about this time gone by. That is why I would like to dedicate this film to my father and mother, who became parents for the first time the same year Tsuchimoto first filmed in Minamata, in 1965, and also to the people of their generation who built the Japanese postwar.

4444(创建者)