What is Zatoichi?

I just looked at the side of the DVD case of Zatoichi and it said: Zatoichi, Blind Swordsman, The, Drama Foreign. I thought the use of the word drama was so curious that I had to comment on it. What does it mean for a movie to be a drama and what does it mean for a movie to play with the rules that define a genre as much as Zatoichi does? Because arguably Zatoichi is nothing more than a study of how many genres one can mix in a movie, how far you can stretch it… (Funnily enough, the only genre that does not play a part in Zatoichi is romance. Damn Japanese, always so cynical.)

I guess the use of the term drama is adequately supported by the adjective foreign: only a foreign movie could be characterized as drama, even if it looked like Zatoichi. I mean, the movie ends with a tap dance for Christ’s sake, how much of a drama can that be? But I guess the overall theme, that of injustice and how the poor deal with it in rural Japan of the last century (?) could be one of a dramatic movie. The beauty and the originality in Takeshi Kitano’s movie of course lies in the fact that although the theme is dramatic, his movie is not… What exactly it is however is a different question that maybe we answer in the end. Or maybe we might even decide that we don’t need to answer it.
What is a genre and how did it emerge as a concept in art? I mean, it would be conceivable not to have the idea of a genre at all in the history of art. When I was a child it really escaped me how did all people of a certain period write romantic poems, to use an example. It seemed very useful to me for classification and further teaching of art movements in school. It seemed useful into distinguishing romanticism vs. realism vs. magic realism, when you teach them in school but where else? Where else are these distinctions necessary?
Later in my life I understood the concept of Zeitgeist, the spirit of our times, which in art I guess it could mean that now is a time to be romantic, Love put on your faces! When times are dangerous and uncertain, people tend to lean towards romanticism more naturally and effortlessly than before. (When I started doing linguistics and due to the fact that I was reading many fashion magazines at the time, I was set out on a quest to find out why Minimalism is so trendy both in science and in fashion, architecture and music. My teacher, when I said that to her replied to me, Christina, Minimalism in linguistics is something very different. I was so discouraged but I am still looking. I still think it’s a bit relevant… Anyway…)
So yes, Zeitgeist and how it gets linked to art. I guess one can argue that it made more sense for people to create art movements and genres in previous times than now. What I mean with this is that now the very notion of interdisciplinary art/science or anything is something natural, it is the genre of our times. Take journalism for example, my favourite writer when he was writing his editorials, he was always putting underneath this text was written listening to this and that cd. He was creating his own soundtrack with which he wanted us to read his texts. Current art, video installations that are accompanied by paintings, music and the rest of it is another side of the same coin: art is more interdisciplinary nowadays, it seeks to avoid classification and it is considered an achievement when something cannot be put into a nicely labelled box. What is this then, what is this urge to avoid labels? Is it only linked to art or does it have to do with a more current and universal human tendency? Have we had enough of labels and we want to get rid of them overall? And what was the use of labels for so many years of human history that made them indispensable and what is the change that made it possible to get rid of them now?
A natural answer could be technology. Advancements in technology made it possible to make a movie that defies genres and video installations that are complex and multi culti… Multi cultural art has also played a very important role in the emergence of the non-genre: remember Moulin Rouge. The amazing soundtrack of that movie that created a genre of its own (a genre to define all genres) was an exquisite mix not only of very different songs but also of civilizations: the musical scene with the Hindi dance and the tango of Roxanne being the two best examples of ‘foreign’ musical traditions that integrated in a ‘western’ musical about fin de siècle and when they were paired with Elton John’s Your song and Gorecki by Lamb they create an amazing mix that set the pace of the things to come…Similarly, Zatoichi is an ‘entertaining’ movie as its creator likes to refer to it and in order to achieve that he mixes and matches all conceivable genres (apart from romance, let me point out again!). Zatoichi has violence, in those amazing eat-my-dust-Tarantino scenes, humour, sometimes more slapstick than others, suspense, playing the is-he-or-isn’t-he-blind game till the end, drama, the amazing scene of the male geisha dancing and having the parallel editing with him as a little boy dancing the same dance and musical, with that out of this world final tap dance scene. Why does he do that? What does he want to tell us?

I guess the message of this movie and of this overall tendency is throw away all labels and be free. These days we are all bi sexual (at least in theory), metro sexual and all that jazz. Women can be strong and not be intimidating (again in theory) and men can still put on face cream and still be as macho as they want. (I am not saying that all men that put on face cream are macho, all I’m saying is that a man can put on face cream and still be macho, if he wants to. I have issues with men that put on face cream, sorry.)

Similarly, the funny scenes in Zatoichi did not by any means undermine the dramatic aspect of the story. They just provided an agreeable alteration from life’s ultimate drama. Exactly like in life, when you are in the most pain, something happens and you burst into laughter, in the movie too dramatic and humoristic scenes are interchangeable and they provide the realism of emotions that such a movie ultimately wishes to convey. As my grandmother used to say (or all Greek grandmothers for that matter), when she was watching her favourite soap opera, everything is taken out of real life, my daughter. So with this note I will end my quest to find out what is Zatoichi’s genre, and I will call it life. Zatoichi is life at its best: drama, suspense, laughter, song and dance but crucially not romance!

I am an awful cynic lately, I apologise…

November 2004