Being approached to star in a movie entirely about yourself would give most people an ego trip. However, Kenta Maeno, a 30-something Japanese folk rocker with two albums and a growing reputation as “Japan’s Bob Dylan” under his belt, errs on the side of modesty. “You’ll probably get sick of me halfway through,” he opines before the North American premiere of Live Tape, a 74-minute single-take documentary that casts him as the main and only protagonist. He insists on donating the spotlight. “The star of this movie is Tokyo. Enjoy Tokyo.”
Kenta Maeno singing in the streets of Tokyo in Live Tape
Shot for approximately $20 on an HD camcorder after no more than three rehearsals, Live Tape is director Tetsuaki Matsue’s lo-fi response to the music documentary. A seasoned documentarian with 10 years of experience shooting a wide variety subjects (tracing his Korean heritage, coercing his friend into losing his virginity to a porn star), Tetsuaki went through a rough 2008. After losing his father, grandmother, and close friend in a span of months, Tetsuaki took to aimlessly wandering the streets of Kichijoji, a neighborhood in western Tokyo, while listening to Kenta Maeno on an iPod Shuffle. Tetsuaki the individual found an unexpected sense of comfort in the distraction the music provided. Tetsuaki the director found inspiration. His vision? To recreate his Kichijoji walks on film.
His experiment is both straightforward and successful: Live Tape is one single take of Kenta Maeno himself walking the streets of Kichijoji, strumming his guitar and wailing about topics ranging from the onset of a mid-life crisis to his penis. And then his penis again, and then his penis a few more times to make sure we know he’s cool about his penis. The film plays like an extended music video of Kenta’s greatest hits, but there’s more to Live Tape than an expository of his songs: the musician himself is an idiosyncratic wonder to watch. And did I mention he has a penis?
While Kenta may insist that the movie is less about him and more about Tokyo, the man and the city play off of each other well. As the movie opens on New Year’s Day, throngs of Japanese people patiently wait in line to perform hatsumode, the first visit to a shrine in the New Year. Offset against this hoard of traditionalists, Kenta stands outside of the same temple, plucking his guitar and wailing, “That summer when I was 18 and whacked off in a dorm…”
Movie Poster for Live Tape
The film is a delightful and unintended odd coupling: Tokyo is the boring, concrete, conventional straight man, and Kenta the quietly eccentric weirdo who carries around multiple pairs of sunglasses, sings about broken hearts on the street corner, and interacts with a city that might prefer him not to. As he walks past row upon row of the same franchised curry houses, hair salons, and convenience stores, Kenta’s character becomes more and more apparent. He’s not doing what he does for attention; Tokyo just exacerbates how much he stands out of a crowd to begin with.
The minimal dialogue in the film is spoken between the singer and director. Tetsuaki makes inane requests for performances with “120% energy!” and requests specific songs like an overeager concert-goer, while Kenta mumbles perfunctory responses. Shortly before the final number of the film, Kenta opens up a bit more, briefly touching on the death of his father to explain how he came to write one of his most personal songs, “Weather Forecast.” This film erects a backdrop of sheer concrete only to regular pierce it with staggeringly human moments. The music of Kenta Maeno may not speak to everyone directly, but he is an undeniably likeable mascot for the living.
– Ben Milam
Live Tape
Directed by Tetsuaki Matsue
Starring: Kenta Maeno, the David Bowies, Tsugumi Nagasawa
Japanese with English subtitles, Japan, 2010, 74 minutes
Soundtrack by Kenta Maeno and the David Bowies
