Journalism as Art in Tokyo Olympiad

In the beginning of Kon Ichikawa’s Tokyo Olympiad, we are shown images of destruction and demolition. A few moments later, Tokyo’s strikingly new Olympic stadium is abuzz with fervent emotion at the Opening Ceremony. In a few magnificent shots on widescreen canvas, Ichikawa is not just showing us the splendor and magnificence of the Games, or the optimism they arouse every four years, but also the rebirth of a war-ravaged Japan.

In Tokyo Olympiad, Ichikawa examines the beauty and rich drama on display at the 1964 Summer Games in Tokyo, creating a catalog of extraordinary observations that range from the expansive to the intimate. It could be classified as a documentary, but very often it transcends those boundaries of reportage into the realm of art and becomes a meditative journey on the beauty of the human body and the strength of the human spirit.

It unfolds with the slow, firm pace of an epic, chronologically chronicling the event. Each constituent of the Games is shot with affection, and technical mastery. Ichikawa revealed that he shot with telefocus cameras, because he was not interested as much in the activity of the sport itself, as he was in the emotion before and afterwards. Throughout the film, this is evident, the camera is almost obstinately trying to unravel the mind of the athlete beneath the tense posterior. We see the demands placed on the body and mind by each sport and the different attributes required to succeed in each one. The film, though, does not excessively glorify the winner. Winning and losing are secondary, it is taking part that is important.

Throughout the film, the sun comes across as an important motif. It is used in the beginning of the film with images of the sun shining brightly at dawn. To think of it as an easy metaphor for Japan as The Land of the Rising Sun would be missing the point. What Ichikawa is trying to do is to represent the sun as an entity to be compared with equality and oneness, his logic being that ‘the sun shines equally on everyone.’ And sure enough, the sun descends from sunset to night as the Closing Ceremony comes about.

The Olympic Games are held up as that bright spark, that dream, when all ethnicities and races merge together in one human embrace. In one of the most emotional sequences, the joyous, disorderly Closing Ceremony is commented upon – This is what world peace would look like. Another dazzlingly shot part is the marathon, held up as the ultimate example of human resilience – the ability to constantly push boundaries, endure adversity, all in order to succeed, and a desire to excel.

Its digressions, detail and meditative resonance took me back to the magical Wim Wenders film Wings of Desire. However at two hours and fifty minutes, Tokyo Olympiad is a bit too long, and I felt some of it could have been chopped off at the editor’s desk. But one can sense that Ichikawa’s ambition is to sketch an all-encompassing portrait of the biggest sporting extravaganza on the planet.

And for the most part, Tokyo Olympiad is a mesmerising and enjoyable film. It intimately captures a cataclysmic event in the renaissance of a nation, while making us keenly aware of the sense of equality that sport instills – a universal dream we all must aspire to.