To capture the breadth and depth of the musical career of Japanese composer and recording artist Ryuichi Sakamoto seems impossible, but somehow “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus” almost accomplishes this her…
” almost accomplishes this herculean challenge. A document of Sakamoto’s final performance before his death from cancer last march, the film provides no commentary or context for the enormity of his body of work, yet somehow encompasses it all as he performs a curated set list in a Japanese recording studio for an audience of one — himself.
Working in concert with these images is an equal clarity of the sound captured, thanks to a recording studio Sakamoto selected because he consider it to have “the finest acoustics in Japan.” Whether or not he’s right, it’s hard to imagine a space that sounds better — and one that does more justice to the performer’s foundational work as a composer.
At the same time, the technological virtuosity used to record Sakamoto reveals the unique expressiveness of the piano beneath his fingers. Notwithstanding the warmth of the piano and the bittersweet romance that weaves through so much of his work, the sound design allows the audience to understand not just the notes as he plays them but their echo, reverberation or fade. Or the linger of a note until he ceases it with a lift of his elegant, slender finger from the key.
Reflecting his aptitude for entertaining a crowd, Sakamoto saves his most famous pieces for closer to the end, and he gives them a gravitas that underscores the fact that this would very possibly be the final time he would ever perform them. “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” and “The Last Emperor” are more than award-winning scores; they’re pieces that have become synonymous with his musical voice, and even in his body language he treats them reverently, as if cradling loved ones.
Not long after a sequence in which he performs a prepared piano, he finishes, appropriately, with “Opus,” from his 1999 solo piano album “BTTB.” The track’s lilting melody leads the camera to a final shot of the piano playing without him — mirroring his notes as well as the intense feeling that comes with them. It’s a sad conclusion to “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus,” but also a reminder that his music lives vividly on.
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