A series of vignettes – a sun-drenched landscape, girl walking, cradling a bouquet of long-stemmed, handpicked wildflowers, or resting by gigantic, gnarly-trunked trees. An insect-eye view of a meadow in full, rude summer fecundity. The girl is our dancer – though when not actually strolling down the path with her bouquet, she just leans against a tree, thinking, or lies on the ground, thinking, casting the odd wary glance at the camera. Once, to slow, lo-fi techno shuffle, she carries another bunch through a very tidy parking structure. Titivating and communing with the exquisite arrangement installed in an empty white room, her eyeshadow a perfect match. Ascending staircases that take on an Escher-like quality. The same flowers abandoned on black pavement shiny with rain. Alone and expectant on a balding field without a flower in sight. And she leaves, and she looks up at the sun, and looks back over her shoulder one last time. It´s only twenty minutes long and it is called For.
Megumi Shinozaki is not the girl (she is played by model Shin Lee), but she is the flower arranger, who through her studio collaborates with artists from other genres to create a unique take on ikebana. Kimihiko Nitta, with a history in fashion photography, shot the film, in a style he calls “moving photography,” using natural light (glare be damned) and remarkably nimble editing fingers. Akira Kosemura wrote and played the score, a colour chart fanning out all the various nuances of his affable technique. Piano (grand or electric) gently picking out fragrant fragments, like plucking posies, or sweepingly panoramic, scritched at by tiny insect claws or vinyl crackle, pillowed by cello or egged on by a small string ensemble, backed up by a seedy drum kit and sweet synthesizer strings, tinkled on tin-toy xylophone. And as always, the way he arranges the space around the notes – like Shinozaki´s flowers, so meticulously – perfectly complements each filmic moment. The CD and DVD accompany a book showcasing Nitta´s stills.
