Ryuichi Sakamoto: CODA

Ryuichi Sakamoto is diagnosed with cancer in 2014 and stops working. A year later he returns. The documentary follows him through this period: in the studio, at home, walking over snow with a microphone. After the disaster at Fukushima he finds a piano that survived the tsunami and plays it; it is out of tune and he likes the way it is out of tune. In the Arctic he records the sound of ice; he collects the sound of rain with a plastic bucket. At the same time he is taking part in demonstrations against nuclear power. Stephen Nomura Schible directs. It is a Japanese and American co-production. The documentary screened at the 2017 Venice Film Festival. The film does not retell his career from the beginning; it follows one period of work after the illness. The matter it treats is where sound comes from; the musician is looking for sounds outside his instrument. The documentary also looks back at his film scores and uses archive footage. The narrative shows the political side too; Sakamoto speaks openly against nuclear power. The camera does not intervene and leaves long silences. The film talks about death directly and the musician meets it calmly. The ending closes as the new album is finished. Its limit is structure; the narrative is scattered, the chronology loose, and some passages are long for anyone without an interest in the music. Who it is for: viewers who like thinking about music and sound. Who it is not for: it is slow, scattered, and the ending quiet.