Tokyo Olympiad

Director: Kon Ichikawa
(1965)

As the 2010 Winter Olympics heat up in Vancouver, Canada and Olympic mania permeates the globe, we look back on the 1964 summer games in Tokyo, Japan. The Japanese government financed their own Olympic coverage, hiring Kon Ichikawa to document the events after the legendary Akira Kurosawa was dismissed from the project. The resulting Tokyo Olympiad offers an exhaustive examination of the games.

Ichikawa focuses on each event with thoughtful reflection, evoking a fascination with the athletes themselves and portraying each event as though they are artistic performance pieces. He allows you to get close to the athletes, and exhibits some restraint in the editing room, allowing events to slowly unfold to the point where the viewer feels like they are sitting in the bleachers.

While the Japanese government was initially not content with this portrayal (they were looking for something more akin to a highlight reel), it is because of this tone that the film remains relevant to this day. Ichikawa’s style not only ensures that his work will remain timeless, but it also points out the inherent silliness of certain events. Like pole vaulting…

Ichikawa’s trademark humor shines through in the film – at one point he focuses on the sagging necks of the judges. He often employs the use of extreme close-ups to highlight abstract absurdity of certain events. Note the exquisite montage from 2:30-2:50 in the following gymnastics clip:

My uncle recently introduced me to the film, and he advised watching it in Japanese with English subtitles, rather than the dubbed version. I couldn’t imagine watching it any other way. For those that are tempted by the English narration, trust that it doesn’t add the outlandish humor like the dubbing in a kung fu flick out of Hong Kong.

Tokyo Olympiad clocks in at nearly three hours – a marathon in and of itself – though it does lend itself nicely to watching in sections. In the end I just wish I had the resources to be in Vancouver with a camera right now.

Trivial Tidbits:

• The 1964 Summer Games were the first Olympics held in Asia
• The first film documenting the Olympics was Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia, which covered the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin