RED POST ON ESCHER STREET: The World Is Your Stage. Are You At Its Center?

Two of Sion Sono’s films, which premiered in the United States this year, Prisoners of the Ghostland (2021) at the Sundance Film Festival and Red Post on Escher Street (2020), presented by Japan Society and Agency for Cultural Affairs, comprise of a large cast of characters and exceptional use of extras who also act as supporting characters in the films’ detailed worlds. While the former is a silly romp that is mostly going to be remembered as one of many feathers in the “weird late-Nic Cage” era, the latter is more conceptually deliberate, self-referential, and rewarding in the way it structurally unfolds the full scope of a typical Sion Sono movie.

Many People, One Movie

Red Post on Escher Street centers around an audition for a film by a famed Japanese filmmaker named Kobayashi (Tatsuhiro Yamaoka). He is looking for three main actresses, and a host of young Japanese women compete for the spots. They all send their applications through the mail from red post-boxes lined up on Escher Street, which is the singular connection between all of their backstories. It is also the connection between them and Kobayashi’s vision for the movie. His muse, a woman name Katako (Mala Morgan), who was the central actress of his first film, now haunts him and influences his ideas for his newest movie. He, as an auteur, wants to recapture the magic of his debut and its authentic non-professional nature by casting novices. The producers have a different idea, wanting two major Japanese stars in the lead roles.

The auditions occur as disjointed sequences in which all of the contestants are introduced through title cards, with backgrounds for their personal inspirations, their exposure to Kobayashi’s work, and their path to the audition, which is always interrupted by a group of construction workers who do not let them by and tell them to go around. It seems a bit laborious, but Sono is efficient in his exposition, cutting out all the meat to get us right into the characters’ hearts and souls.

The strange quirks of Sion Sono’s cinema are a hit or miss affair, with some of them leaving the viewer frustrated and annoyed, particularly in sequences where the central characters behave in ambiguously eccentric ways for apparently no reason – though this is a genuine cultural characteristic of Japanese cinema, not something which is a tonal flaw. What’s remarkable in this film is the way the layers of eccentricity and the strange personalities of each of the young women participating in the audition slowly build into a humanistic portrait of the crossroads between art and life. More similar in style and execution to films like Himizu (2011) and Love Exposure (2009), this is the best mode Sion Sono finds himself in – able to create catharsis from pure self-expression and self-reflexiveness.

The Coalescence of Life and Art

The journey and the ultimate expression of art is the central thesis and heart of Sono’s achingly optimistic movie. Kobayashi’s long-lost muse Katako has different ideas of what she wants cinema to be. She envisions an anarchic celebration of color and explosion. Kobayashi, despite being a nationally worshiped ‘auteur’, is still someone who succumbs to the whims of capital and the profit motive of a crony producer (played by Tetsu Watanabe in a darkly comedic performance). Katako chides him on his lack of self-confidence and flimsy belief in his own art. He seems unsure at every turn, despite being renowned and even worshiped by some. Sono cleverly displays the importance and the pitfalls of the artist as a genius. On one hand, Kobayashi’s reputation brings him work, fans and a legacy of mastery of his craft. On the other, there is a danger to his stature that slowly crushes him throughout the film.

There are too many characters in this Atlmanesque ensemble piece to name individually but, they all embody a humanistic hope and optimism through their desire to be chosen for Kobayashi’s film. The reasons for auditioning are all varying and unique – some crave a cathartic release from violence and trauma, some crave fame, others want to fulfill an artistic purpose, and some are devout groupie worshipers of Kobayashi himself. Whatever the motivation, Red Post on Escher Street embodies the theory of a movie’s intricate parts, and bit players function initially as individualistic entities that, through the experience of artistic collaboration, coalesce into a collective.

Conclusion

The movie’s display of cinema as functioning on molecular levels culminates in a penultimate shoot of the film in production where stars, extras, director, producer, and crew are all bunched together. The camera jumps from person to person, creating a microcosm of society where some are at the top of the ladder and others at the bottom. The social politics and the metaphorical nature of the movie’s dissemination of art and life exhibit what it means to be a central character or a bit player in the world. The final sequence in the film, shot in a jarring guerilla filmmaking-style beautifully and memorably completes what is one of Sono’s most fully visualized and theorized movies.

Red Post on Escher Street screened as part of the Japan Society and Agency of Cultural Affairs 2021 Program.