THERE IS A STONE

There is a Stone

A film by Tatsunari Ota. In japa­ne­se with German subtitles.

[Credits] [Tickets & Termine] [Trailer]

As ele­gant and decep­tively simp­le as its title, Tatsunari Ota’s Ishi ga aru, redu­ces nar­ra­ti­ve and plot to ques­ti­ons of time, move­ment, and encoun­ter.
The film opens with a name­l­ess woman arri­ving in a small town, out of see­ming nowhe­re. “Is the­re any­thing nice around here?” she asks a local, “Something fasci­na­ting?” Her inquiry met with a near-blank sta­re, she thus drifts, even­tual­ly encoun­tering a man skip­ping stones by the river. Together they pass the after­noon enga­ged in playful out­door acti­vi­ties like balan­cing sticks, stack­ing stones and more. Finally, they part – their time tog­e­ther curtail­ed by the ine­vi­ta­ble waning day­light – with the unex­pec­ted emo­tio­nal import of their time tog­e­ther left ripp­ling like the water over one of their sub­mer­ged peb­bles.
While struc­tu­red around cen­tral cha­rac­ters and nar­ra­ti­ve in natu­re, the film invi­tes a form of spec­ta­tor­ship more clo­se­ly asso­cia­ted with dance or per­for­mance art. Throughout, Ota empha­si­s­es the phy­si­cal and emo­tio­nal exch­an­ges bet­ween stran­gers, as well as bet­ween humans and natu­re. As if in respon­se to the woman’s ear­ly query, Ishi ga aru quiet­ly reo­ri­ents our expec­ta­ti­ons and under­stan­ding of fascination.

Credits:

Ishi ga aru – 石がある
Jp 2022, 104 Min., japan. OmU
Regie: Tatsunari Ota
Kamera: Yuji Fukaya
Schnitt: Keiko Okawa
mit:An Ogawa, Tsuchi Kanou

Trailer:
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