A Cut Finger At Kita-Shinjuku (1987)

• 75%
• 1987
• Masatomo Nishizawa

A room in a shabby flat in Kita-Shinjuku. The artist, who lives there, faces the camera and gives a solo performance. He photographs his own face. He takes a picture of his own face, or of his fingers cut by a knife. He looks out of the window and keeps staring at the player abandoned in the corner of the building. He fills a 1.5-litre bottle of Coke with water and tries to drink it all at once. The artist doesn't say a word and the darkroom becomes an eerie space, isolated and lost in time, filled only with the sound of the camera driving. The final scene, in which we witness the senseless, almost insane act of a man who repeatedly tries to chug a bottle and finally finishes 1.5 litres, is a chilling experience. This is a personal film that shows the essence of fear that lurks in our everyday lives, through the artist's strong will and painful acting.