Thursday 9 June 2011

Ikebana 1956


Hiroshi Teshigahara, headmaster of the Sogetsu School 1980-2001, was a well known film director with an international career. His surrealistic films from the 1960s based on stories by novelist and screenwriter Kobo Abe, have acquired the status of cult movies.

His short films are less well known. The 2o minutes long "Ikebana" from 1956 is one of his first productions. It portraits his father Sofu Teshigara's work with ikebana.

I've recently watched this charming short movie that retells the history of ikebana up to the modern postwar styles of the Sogetsu School. What makes this film a must see for everyone interested in Sogetsu is that the camera of Hiroshi Teshigahara takes us to the studio of his father Sofu where he is working on new creations. You can also see him teaching an ikebana class at the Sogetsu headquarters. The film offers a rare opportunity to get a deeper understanding of this great master who totally changed the world of ikebana.

"Ikebana" is published as extra material to the DVD box set "Three films by Hiroshi Teshigahara" by The Criterion Collection.

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