Shunji Iwai's Undo and PiCNiC Get 4K Remasters in Double Feature
The double feature pairs two of Iwai's most experimental 1990s works in newly remastered form, following the previously announced 4K release of Swallowtail Butterfly in September.
Reporting from 1 source: Cinema Today.
Shunji Iwai's 1994 film Undo, starring Tomoko Yamaguchi and Etsushi Toyokawa, will screen as a 4K remaster starting September 25 at TOHO Cinemas Hibiya and other venues. It will be shown as a double feature with PiCNiC (1996), also in a 4K remaster. Iwai noted the remastering work was difficult due to the 16mm footage and experimental push and pull processing.
Undo first ran for one week in October 1994 at Cine Switch Ginza, where late shows drew long daily queues, and its August 1995 roadshow at Theater Shinjuku set a new attendance record for the venue. The story follows Miumi (Yamaguchi) and Yukio (Toyokawa), who live in an atelier-like home until Miumi begins tying up objects around her with string, including her pet turtle and her own hands while knitting. A psychiatrist (Tomorowo Taguchi) diagnoses her with compulsive binding syndrome, and her condition progresses until she starts binding things she cannot see.
PiCNiC was shot in summer 1994 and stars Chara, leading into Iwai's later Swallowtail Butterfly. Three patients at a psychiatric hospital, Coco, Tsumuji, and Satoru, are forbidden from leaving the grounds, but Coco proposes they walk along the top of the wall instead of outside it, so they set off across the city to witness the end of the world.
Iwai said the two films were made under the theme of free, experimental projects that television drama and film would not normally allow. He said looking back, he has rarely made works this cult-like and should make more, and that the remastering was difficult because the 16mm footage had been push and pull processed, but the result is one he is satisfied with.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.
Sources
- Cinema Today 岩井俊二監督、山口智子＆豊川悦司『undo』4Kリマスター版公開決定！『PiCNiC』と2本立て上映