In this novel, one of the narrators (Renee) is in awe of films of Yasujirō Ozu - a Japanese director and screenwriter, in particular 'Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice'.
Sliding Doors
Doors that move silently, refusing to offend space.
A normal door creates an interference, and intrusion into the space of the room and a 'gaping hole adrift in a section of wall that would have preferred to remain whole.' But sliding doors allow the room to be transformed without affecting the balance of the room. The sharing of space and reunion between 2 rooms can occur without intrusion.
"Life becomes a quiet stroll - whereas our life, in the homes we have, seems like nothing so much as a long series of intrusions." - p152
Break & Continuity
Renee is also fascinated by the movement of Japanese women when entering a room.
They come in, slide the door along the wall, and take two quick steps that lead them to the foot of the raised area where the family rooms are located; without bending over they remove their laceless shoes from their feet and with a supple, gracious motion of their legs pivot upon themselves as they climb, back first, onto the platform. Their movement is energetic and precise and their bodies easily follow the slight pirouette of their feet - which leads to a curiously broken and casual series of steps. While such hindrance in gestures usually evokes constraint, their lively little steps with their incomprehensible fits and starts confer onto the feet...the seal of a work of art.
"When we Westerners walk, our culture dictates that we must, through the continuity of a movement we envision as smooth and seamless, try to restore what we take to be the very essence of life: efficiency without obstacles, a fluid performance that, being free of interruption, will represent the vital elan thanks to which all will be realized. For us the standard is the cheetah in action: all his movements fuse together harmoniously, one cannot be distinguished from the next, and the swift passage of the great wild animal seems like one long continuous movement symbolizing the deep perfection of life.
When a Japanese woman disrupts the powerful sequence of natural movement with her jerky little steps, we ought to experience the disquiet that troubles our soul whenever nature is violated in this way, but in fact we are filled with an unfamiliar blissfulness, as if disruption could lead to a sort of ectasy, and a grain of sand to beauty.What we discover in this affront to the sacred rhythm of life, this defiant movement of little feet, this excellence born of constraint, is a paradigm of Art.
When movement has been banished from a nature that seeks it continuity, when it becomes renegade and remarkable by virtue of its very discontinuity, it attains the level of aesthetic creation. Because art is life, playing to other rhythms."
"When we Westerners walk, our culture dictates that we must, through the continuity of a movement we envision as smooth and seamless, try to restore what we take to be the very essence of life: efficiency without obstacles, a fluid performance that, being free of interruption, will represent the vital elan thanks to which all will be realized. For us the standard is the cheetah in action: all his movements fuse together harmoniously, one cannot be distinguished from the next, and the swift passage of the great wild animal seems like one long continuous movement symbolizing the deep perfection of life.
When a Japanese woman disrupts the powerful sequence of natural movement with her jerky little steps, we ought to experience the disquiet that troubles our soul whenever nature is violated in this way, but in fact we are filled with an unfamiliar blissfulness, as if disruption could lead to a sort of ectasy, and a grain of sand to beauty.What we discover in this affront to the sacred rhythm of life, this defiant movement of little feet, this excellence born of constraint, is a paradigm of Art.
When movement has been banished from a nature that seeks it continuity, when it becomes renegade and remarkable by virtue of its very discontinuity, it attains the level of aesthetic creation. Because art is life, playing to other rhythms."
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