An Experimental Life in ‘Moriyama-San’

The feature film by Ila Bêka, part of the duo Bêka & Lemoine, shot in Tokyo in August 2016, begins with a musical precision: the definition of noise music, which is displayed in white letters against a black backdrop. Then the protagonist is introduced: someone who, a few seconds later, we discover has never travelled by boat or by plane. He has never left Japan, or even Tokyo, and he still lives in the place where he was born. 

Then, his silhouette appears at last: after plugging in his hi-fi, he sits in a chair in the middle of this room that the viewer imagines is entirely dedicated to music, takes a sip of a drink and looks straight at the camera. With slightly dishevelled grey-white hair and wearing a white T-shirt and shorts with narrow stripes, this is Moriyama-San. 

The man is an unconditional fan of noise music, and indeed, the latter is the intermediary through which he enters into contact with the director as they talk about Yoshihide Otomo, whose music accompanies the entirety of the film. When Ila Bêka asked him if he can stay a little while, he never imagined that he was about to spend  a week in this iconic house designed by Ryue Nishizawa, recipient of the Pritzker Prize.

A little village in the centre of Tokyo

Over the course of an hour, the viewer follows Yasuo Moriyama as he wanders through these ten white blocks connected by little dirt tracks, where plants are abundant. Reading, looking at the sky and the clouds, projecting a film on one of his walls, or blowing dandelion clocks, Moriyama-San deals with what is around him in the moment. 

After his mother passed away, Yasuo Moriyama demolished the house where he had lived with her. He wrote a letter to the architect at SANAA, asking him to build a new one. The latter responded: ‘You don’t need a house, you need a little village in the middle of a forest. But in the centre of Tokyo.’ And so, Moriyama House was born, and with it this art of living that Yasuo Moriyama holds so dear, and that is immortalised in Moriyama-San, a beautifully poetic film. 

Moriyama-San (2017), a film directed by Beka & Lemoine, is available on demand on Vimeo.