My review for "A Foggy Doll". [...]
I felt compelled to match your picture...
with a thousand words.
A foggy doll - Image and BeingA foggy doll, the Image Video featuring idol singer Maimi Yajima of the group °C-ute, directed by Yohei Miura, is notable for its exploration of conventions of the genre by means of the isolation and exaggeration thereof. It achieves a striking effect by using conventions of the genre in such a way as to create an impression entirely unlike what is normally expected therefrom. The most obvious feature of the work, its unusually slow pace, is an invitation for the viewer to consider how its use of other elements is also atypical.
The anthropocentric branch of the Image Video genre is based on presenting footage of an attractive woman engaged in various kinds of activity, or indeed inactivity, in a variety of outfits, accompanied by a soothing audio track. The actress, in essence, is reduced to a marionette, an unspeaking doll, propelled by invisible strings and the will of the director for the entertainment of an unseen audience.
A foggy doll subtly parodies this by stripping down several conventions of the genre to their bare essentials and presenting them in isolation. Crucially, the viewer is never explicitly told what he is being shown. In postmodern style, the work asks questions and provides no answers.
The iconic first scene, appropriately set primarily to the melody of Chopin's prelude in E minor accompanied by a repetitive, thumping rhythm track in true pop music tradition, serves as a preface to the body of the work. In typical Image Video fashion, Yajima is attired in a plausibly cute outfit, which nevertheless invites lascivious attention to parts of the female body which are not considered overtly sexual. The skirt is skilfully designed so as to simultaneously display the thighs and block anything that could be considered an upskirt view, while the sleeveless nature of the shirt affords an unobstructed view of Yajima's perfectly innocent shoulders. The outfit as a whole exhibits a reduced-to-absurdity version of the plausible deniability so important to the 'innocent' side of the Image Video genre. This theme is continued for the full length of the work, further emphasized by the lack of swimsuit scenes, common to the genre but more obviously suggestive.
The content of the scene, an exaggeratedly slow dance performed in front of a stationary camera, further accentuates the objectifying nature of the scene, and indeed the genre. It affords the viewer the freedom to focus his attention on any portion of Yajima's toned limbs as they work their way through a series of precise motions for his voyeristic entertainment. More subtly, it also facilitates abstracting away the implied presence of a cameraman, thus contributing to an illusion of intimacy. This feature is also evident in the minimalistic camera work of the scenes to follow.
The second part, essentially a separate scene, features Yajima in the same outfit, but the relatively dynamic nature of the opening is replaced by the pointed stillness for which the work as a whole is noted. This completes the bridge between the expected nature of an Image Video and the highly abstracted version to which we are instead treated. Yajima's wandering gaze is the natural point of focus in this scene, emphasizing the convention of the camera as a viewer surrogate whenever it stops thereupon or strays away. The slow pace affords ample time for introspection and suggests the question, central to the work, of just what the viewer experiences in those moments, and just why.
The second scene, with its mobile camera, elaborates on this concept. The motion is used for slow, panning and wavering shots of various segments of Yajima's anatomy. Unlike the first scene, the viewer is told where to look, a contrast that is particularly striking now that the preceding scene has established the camera as a surrogate for his eyes. This invites him to question whether he was previously guided as to what he should want to see, only in more subtle ways. Finally, the camera returns to a stationary position, which creates a stark contrast and calls to attention the fact that the earlier partial-body shots were in fact a prominent feature of the Image Video genre at large.
The third scene ties together all of the earlier points in a narrative with no apparent contradictions, exaggerated only enough to give an unexpecting viewer a vague sense of unease. Used in moderation, the very devices the video has so far exdamined would pass without notice. Moreover, this scene elaborates on the use of eye contact and changes in expression and the part they play in effecting the illusion of viewer participation. The presence of a camera between the actress and the audience fades away, as if into the titular fog.
The fourth scene, true to the title, displays Yajima as the next thing to a marionette, moved ever so slightly by unseen strings. Only a bare minimum of changes in expression and making and losing eye contact remains to bring to mind the conventions of the genre, serving only to create vague expectations that are left unfulfilled. Clearly, Yajima's body movements and expressions are insufficient to create a plausible Image Video.
The final scene, strikingly entitled
not a doll, seeks to present a minimal but sufficient amount of movement to satisfy the requirements of doing so. The amount of motion presented is only barely more dramatic but drastically more lifelike than in the preceding scene. The scene brief, but long enough to call the contrast into attention.
The work concludes with an interview with Yajima, seamlessly following the final scene, as if to distract the viewer from ruminating on the body of the work. Though presented in earnest, this interview also reflects a convention of the Image Video genre in providing a display that the actress is a person with a personality. The contrast between this and the purely visual role she plays in the bulk of the work is easily missed by a viewer accustomed to the genre.
Concluding the interview, Yajima herself underscores that in filming the work, she paid particular attention to separating herself from her role. Reinforcing the main idea, this subtly brings into question the nature of the genre itself, while leaving the answers as an exercise for the viewer.