The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 Years without Images
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The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 Years without Images
In the 1970s, a group of left-wing Japanese militants committed to armed struggle and the Palestinian cause settled in Lebanon, where they lived underground for decades. Among them was the radical filmmaker Masao Adachi. Known as a theorist of fûkeiron, Adachi was part of a movement of filmmakers who shot landscapes to reveal the omnipresent structures of power that underpin social and political systems. However, all the films he made during his self-imposed exile were destroyed during the Lebanese Civil War. A decade after Adachi’s arrest and extradition to Japan, Eric Baudelaire travelled to Lebanon and filmed places where Adachi lived with other members of the left-wing Japanese Red Army. Baudelaire records the experiences of militant leader Fusako Shigenobu and her daughter May, who was born in Lebanon and only travelled to Japan after her mother’s arrest in 2000.
In Baudelaire’s film, grainy panoramas of contemporary Tokyo and Beirut are blended with archival footage, television clips, and film excerpts, forming a backdrop to May and Adachi’s voices and memories. They speak of exile, politics, cinema, and everyday life amidst the twentieth century’s upheavals. Rather than a linear enquiry, Baudelaire’s film is a fragmented and circuitous anamnesis.
Eric Baudelaire. The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 Years without Images, 2011. single-channel video (colour, sound), duration: 66 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © Eric Baudelaire
Eric Baudelaire. The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 Years without Images, 2011. single-channel video (colour, sound), duration: 66 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © Eric Baudelaire
Eric Baudelaire. The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 Years without Images, 2011. single-channel video (colour, sound), duration: 66 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © Eric Baudelaire
Eric Baudelaire. The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 Years without Images, 2011. single-channel video (colour, sound), duration: 66 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © Eric Baudelaire
Eric Baudelaire. The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 Years without Images, 2011. single-channel video (colour, sound), duration: 66 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © Eric Baudelaire
Eric Baudelaire. The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 Years without Images, 2011. single-channel video (colour, sound), duration: 66 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © Eric Baudelaire
Eric Baudelaire. The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 Years without Images, 2011. single-channel video (colour, sound), duration: 66 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © Eric Baudelaire
Eric Baudelaire. The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 Years without Images, 2011. single-channel video (colour, sound), duration: 66 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © Eric Baudelaire
Eric Baudelaire. The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 Years without Images, 2011. single-channel video (colour, sound), duration: 66 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © Eric Baudelaire
Eric Baudelaire. The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 Years without Images, 2011. single-channel video (colour, sound), duration: 66 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © Eric Baudelaire
Eric Baudelaire. The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 Years without Images, 2011. single-channel video (colour, sound), duration: 66 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © Eric Baudelaire
Eric Baudelaire. The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 Years without Images, 2011. single-channel video (colour, sound), duration: 66 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © Eric Baudelaire
About the Director
Eric Baudelaire (b. 1973, United States) is a filmmaker who lives and works in Paris. Through film, photography, printmaking, and installation, he explores the relationship between images and events, documents, and narratives. His films have screened at numerous international film festivals, and his work has been collected by public institutions, including M+, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Centre Pompidou, Fond National d’Art Contemporain, and FRAC Auvergne.
Image at top: Eric Baudelaire. The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 Years without Images, 2011. single-channel video (colour, sound), duration: 66 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © Eric Baudelaire