There is a world of film that only certain people in Japan can get into touch with – the jishu-eiga, the ultra-independent scene of filmmaking. To get a glance at what these directors create one must visit what is called a mini-theatre in Japan.
Luckily, Thanks to Third Windows Films, film-lovers can finally have taste of this vibrant scene from the comfort of their own home. Fans of Third Windows Films will be happy to hear that the first New Directors From Japan, which introduces Takashi Ono to international audiences, does not only feature his first feature film I Am Baseball but also his earlier short-films. This time, we take a closer look at the last short included in the box-set: Pick It Up and Throw It Away!
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In Pick it up and Throw it Away!, Ono unfolds the story of Hiroko Hoshi (Maeko Mineo), a young woman who often gets into trouble at work due to her cleaning-reflex. One day at the park, she is approached by Mai Motomiya (Noriko Sakamoto), the leader of Tokyo Soylent Green who happened to witness her dedication to cleaning the other day, to invite her into their ranks.
While Hiroko tries to brush them off, the promise of being able to give herself over to the compulsion to tidy things up compels her to show up, quite enthusiastically, at the park cleaning event. However, Joe The Ace (Jin Hisano) and his goons roam around the park to throw a spanner in their works.
With Pick it up and Throw it Away!, Ono offers the spectator a simple but effective play with the signifier trash. The two layers of meaning are introduced via the confrontation between Hiroko and her boss. Of course, trash denotes the physical left-overs of consumption within the societal field. Trash is what has stopped playing any function within society.
Hiroko’s boss, who remains blind to the pleasure she derives from picking up trash – she derives from committing herself to her compulsive drive, tries to stop her from wasting her life on this and, invoking the discourses of ideological capitalistic-normality, demands her to properly return to work. Of course, Hiroko deflects his attempt at normalisation by remarking that what she does is for the sake of society – a mere phantasmatic justification for her joyous compulsion.
Before the confrontation, Hiroko introduces the more figurative meaning by equating Joe The Ace, a local gang member, with trash that needs to be cleaned up. He is, utilizing the implications of Hiroko’s verbal reproach, a presence without societal functionality. Yet, what Hiroko forgets is that delinquent, just like real trash, is a stain produced by the societal field and that beyond the societal position of trash lies a subject.
Yet, when the gang litters again – just to annoy the voluntary workers, Motomiya decides to take matters in her own hands. Hiroko, unknowingly, is pulled into an act of cleaning than is far dirtier than expected. How will she cope with such dirty business? The finale only offers unexpected answers.
It would be a sin to further delve into the twists Ono’s Pick it up and Throw it Away! as the spectator’s enjoyment is function of Ono’s skill to bend his narrative into unexpected directions. In fact, we would even contend, having seen his first feature film and his other shorts, that his ability to rhyme different narrative threads together in an absurd but strangely coherent way forms the main selling point of his directorial work.
Like in his other work, Ono starts by favouring the static shot within his composition of Pick it Up and Throw it Away!. The static shot forms, at least in the beginning, the primary compositional playground for Ono but also establishes a firm frame from which excursions of dynamism can be safely made.
While the static shot is utilized for its establishing qualities, it is also evident that Ono seeks to exploit the static frame to create pleasant shot-compositions (e.g. the flower between the trashbags) and heighten the light-hearted impact of certain visual moments (e.g. Hiroko running after an empty can while flailing her arms around). Ono’s turn to dynamism bears resemblance to the way he employed it in Cheating Office Lady: Wet Galaxy: from merely focusing on an object that moves (e.g. a can rolling, picking up a newspaper) to evoke the frustration that marks the protagonist.
However, Ono also richly interweaves other moments of dynamism (i.e. shaky framing, tilting shots, tracking movement) in his composition so that, in the end, the visual fabric of Pick it Up and Throw it Away! feels more dynamic than any of his other shorts.
Despite the technical constraints, Pick it up and Throw it Away! does boast a pleasant colour and lightning-design. While there are, of course, some inconsistencies, some of his colouring and lightning ensures that certain thoughtful shot-compositions have an aesthetic impact on the spectator.
Pick it up and Throw it Away! affirms – or better re-affirms – Takashi Ono’s talent to blend absurd narrative turns together in a way that is not only consistent, but also deeply satisfying. It is pure pleasure to see Ono turn a simple premise into an absurd adventure whose resolution cannot be predicted.