Lil’ Tokyo Story, 2016
HD video with sound;
cinema-cut
7 min, 44 sec
two-channel version
4 min, 20 sec loop


MIX Festival New York; “Curator’s Picks,” NY 2018

IHME Contemporary Art, Helsinki, 2017

Viennale International Film Festival, Austria 2016

Please email for screening availability.

A shot-for-shot remake of the climax of Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953). Two male amateur actors in drag play the roles of Noriko and Kyōko, speaking word-for-word transliterations of the original Japanese script (Screen Right) and the English subtitles (Screen Left). The subtitles of each channel reflect the opposite screen’s translation, playing in and out of sync textually and visually.

“The Angeleno Matthew Lax’s Lil’ Tokyo Story (2016) re-interprets a key scene from Ozu’s original film (1953). —Mika Taanila

PRESS:

Civin, Marcus, “Ghosts in the Machine.” ProspectArt.org, 14 Nov 2022. 

Hallensleben, Silvia. “Cinema of Attractions.” Die Tageszeitung. 4 Nov 2016. Print