Why was the series "Tale of a Butcher Shop" directed by Aya Hanabusa and the living things born (second half)?

I would like to interview the video documentary writers. Especially for writers who are paying attention to the activities of people who are difficult to visualize and disappear with the passage of time. The ancestors have lived by having a close connection with the lives of animals and plants other than humans. Some of them may not be overlooked from the viewpoint of modern values, but even though they represent our original appearance, what is the "soul" and what is the "human"? I think it's packed with complex elements that make you think. Through interviews with writers who are in a rather "peripheral" position in the video industry, I thought I could get a lot of notice.

In the second session, we talked to director Aya Hanabusa. I was able to hear in detail the motives and background of the documentary of the slaughterhouse called "Tale of a Butcher Shop". (Note: According to the Kyodo News Reporter's Handbook, in general, for example, the expression "slaughterhouse" may be paraphrased as "slaughterhouse" or "slaughterhouse", but in the text, it is covered. I would like to respect the names used in the relationship between the person and the interviewee.)

(Continued from the first half)

■ The feeling of "being familiar" with the "site" ■

By the way, there was a dispute between Mr. Motohashi and Mr. Ryuichi Hirokawa, a photographer. About Mr. Motohashi's first movie "Nadya's Village".

Fujii What was the issue?

Mr. Hirokawa Koji severely criticized "The Village of Naja". It's too beautiful.

To depict a radioactively contaminated village beautifully is to affirm the radioactive contamination. We should tell more about how dangerous it is to stay in a contaminated area. Mr. Motohashi, no, I want you to imagine what lies beyond that beauty.

Fujii : Actually, the stage of "Naja Village" is a beautiful place, and I think there was something that appealed to me that there was invisible radiation in the invisible part. That's why it's scary.

It is true that there are few scenes in "Naja Village" that directly appeal to the danger of radiation. It depicts farmers who stay in their hometown despite their anxiety and live rooted in the earth. And the image is really beautiful. But I don't think it's an expression that affirms this situation at all. Rather, the beautiful hometown, which has no color or smell and is no different from the past, feels the horror, invisible anxiety, and unfocused resentment that has become a seriously polluted area.

Of course, I have the feeling that I want to be useful to society, as I said earlier, but I'm particularly interested in people's lives and things like communities, and I want to know such things, and it's very difficult to meet them. It's fun.

I didn't want to make a movie or convey it at the very beginning, but I wanted to know and understand people who I found attractive. That's all.

Fujii For example, in "A Story of a Meat Shop", there are scenes that stun cows and multiple cameras. In that case, the camera is a kind of violent device, and after all, the atmosphere changes depending on the presence of the camera. I think there are times when cameras, staff, and the like are no longer part of the landscape. At that time, I think that something like what you said, the background of what you are doing and various things will be copied for the first time, or something will be copied to the air. The place where the Kitade family grills meat and eats rice is also closely related.

I wonder if it's been 12 years since I started shooting documentary films. Recently, I've come to understand the feeling of "familiarity". I think it's important to share the feeling that I'm familiar with the place, whether or not I have a camera, that I'm comfortable with them, and that the other person feels natural. That's right.

Fujii Does that mean you can understand it yourself?

Whether it's a midden shell mound, Iwaishima, or some of the places I'm currently attending, I went to the site and found a persimmon tree here, everybody's house here, and a river flowing here. At first, I'm checking it, but I feel like I understand it without being aware of it.

It becomes commonplace from a certain time. When I'm curious about it and start going there, and when I don't realize that I'm going there, walking there, or being with the people there, I think about the world that I can see from there. It feels like the next door will open wherever you go.

Fujii So, anyway, you don't do anything like turning the camera. Of course, the decisive moment would be taken early, but that's why I thought I wouldn't take a picture so impatiently.

However , there are time and financial restrictions, so sometimes I feel like I'm turning the camera or having the cameraman accompany me from the beginning, and while I'm going alone. Sometimes it becomes a "familiar" feeling, and there are various things.

What about Fujii 's interviewees? Is there any moment when the subject loses consciousness of a kind of foreign body feeling called a camera?

There is a sword. There are quite a few things that I think have changed since a certain time.

Fujii What kind of time is that?

I can't say for sure , but in my experience, I feel that after a certain amount of time has passed.

Fujii : Even in print, if you ask for coverage, it's formally said, isn't it? However, there are times when the other party's reply is ambiguous. Do you mean that you don't know when it's okay?

Yes , there is.

Fujii : I wonder when and where I thought I got the agreement, when I thought about it, at that moment, and so on, but I think it's interesting to ruminate. In particular, craftsmen often say something or are silent, so please, don't you understand?

That's right.

Fujii On the contrary, I feel like I'm being seen here, or something is being observed.

I'm doing this to get a video shot, so it's natural that I want to know or understand, but I'm trying to figure out who the other person is more than me. I think it's a good idea. After all, it's also a "threat" to be able to point the camera unilaterally from the other side. I don't know how the shots will be used, so I think I'm wondering who the guys are shooting.

Fujii : No matter what kind of experience you have, you always have that kind of "fear."

■ How to tell the other person that you have "interest" ■

Fujii : It may be a small story, but I'm also a manga magazine, and although I'm not a gourmet traveller, I've been serializing around hormone stores for four and a half years. I went to a long-established store and asked dozens of places to say the name of the part and the official name, and I got the answer right. The writers who come to the interview hardly understand and come only with "hormones". Is it the liver, the pancreas, the spleen, the pig, or the cow? It was a kind of test. The interviewees thought, "Anyway, I'm sure they're coming without knowing it," and I thought that the interviewees were not only knowledgeable but comprehensively viewed.

In my case, I'm really embarrassed, but when I went to Mr. Kitade, I had almost no prior knowledge. I didn't know anything or anything, but I had more interest and curiosity than anyone else, and I struck straight that I wanted to understand you. So, although he doesn't know anything, it seems that he seems to be interested in it.

Fujii : Your enthusiasm was in full swing.

I'm really enthusiastic ( laughs ). So, I think it was like, I'm sorry, I'll take care of it. I knew that it was difficult to make a movie about butcher shops and slaughterhouses, so I thought that I shouldn't be fainted at the beginning. He told me that he wanted to make a video of the work of the slaughterhouse, including knocking (beating the cow's eyebrows with a long hammer to stun it).

Fujii : You don't make any taboo when you shoot.

纐 纈Yes. I think it makes a lot of sense to show the slaughterhouse work as much as possible, and that's what I want to do first and foremost. The other is that we do not want to make the area name or name anonymous or apply a mosaic, and we do not want to make an enlightenment movie. First asked if you could allow me to start shooting.

Fujii Enlightenment What does it mean that you don't want to make a movie?

The word " enlightenment " has the meaning of teaching or arousing something right. I think there is certainly a genre of enlightenment films in documentary films, rather than documentary films.

Fujii There is.

■ I didn't want to make it an "enlightenment movie" ■

I think that clarifying the message, for example, to eliminate discrimination because it is not good, is to enlighten, but I think it is really strange to discriminate, not to say that discrimination should not be done. I think it's about getting people to see the video that they can get.

I don't think that discrimination should be done, it's just that the person ends up in his or her heart, and there are times when he thinks he can't teach it. To the last, I think it is possible to create an opportunity that seems to be the case, or to show the materials. I can't say it well. When I told the Buraku Liberation League people that I didn't want to make an enlightenment movie, I remember saying that I didn't know what kind of movie was a non-enlightenment movie to deal with these issues.

Fujii I see. It's an interesting episode.

So, we decided to see the first " Houri no Shima" together, and we had a screening.I'm not sure, but it's not an enlightening movie

It seems that the nuances of something like this were conveyed. That's why they understood that (cameras) would be included in our lives. However, when that happens, various people are reflected, and although we are adults, we were worried that children and grandchildren might be discriminated against again. The people who have been in the liberation movement are those who have clarified their origins in order to eliminate discrimination, so I would like to cooperate with us as much as I want, but I can not say "yes" easily. I was told. It's natural, so I exchanged many times, and at the end I felt like giving up on my stubbornness, and I felt like I should do it. (Smile)

Fujii : It seems that Mr. Koji's desire to fundamentally present something like the human soul has been overwhelmed.

I 've been fighting Buraku discrimination for a long time, but I think there was a possibility that the dilemma that discrimination wouldn't go away, or a different way of communicating, might have come to my mind. is.

Is there still a Fujii shop (Kitade Meat Shop)?

There is a slaughterhouse, but the slaughterhouse has disappeared, and only the beast soul monument remains.

Fujii I think that building was very valuable. It was a magnificent tiled building, both historically and in terms of discrimination. Did you talk about leaving it as a cultural heritage?

I really thought so. In fact, there were some people who asked me if I could leave it, but it seemed that I had to clear various expenses such as maintenance costs, so it was demolished after all.

■ A momentary chance given to keep a record ■

Fujii : Let's get back to the story a little, but cows, pigs and chickens are said to be economic animals, but they are built on the "death" of cows, pigs and chickens, but that part is the part that humans carry. Then, what is going on, and mechanization is progressing. "Death" is being obscured more and more, and it is not clear what the meat mass sold at the supermarket is. It is becoming less visible that cows fall down and are judged in small places like the Kitade Meat Shop, and steam rises from the internal organs. Among them, it is very important timing and value to keep such a record.

I feel that the timing when I was able to make this movie was really a momentary opportunity.

In a book called "Domestic Eating" written by Fujii Illustrated Reportage Writer Junko Uchizawa, I raised three pigs myself and made friends with the slaughterhouse specially, and wrote only my own pig number on my body ( There is a scene where the eyes meet at the end of being driven away in the slaughter lane (so that you can see who the pig is), but the unspeakable feelings come to me. As slaughter becomes industrialized, there will be no more opportunities to think about the lives of animals.

In today's Japanese society, everything is divided into divisions of labor, and each part is fragmented. However, because it is all connected in nature, the number of places and jobs that are moving on the premise of something like wholeness is decreasing. There is a strong desire to visualize a world in which everything is organically related, and you can see that it is connected to the whole when you look at it one by one.

■ "Wasabi" and "Stone bath" ■

I've been with the Wasabi field farmer's family in Shimoda for about a year, and I've been shooting for about a year. It seems that the world of wasabi is also divided into divisions of labor, but we do everything from picking seeds to growing seedlings and harvesting wasabi. Until it becomes a seedling, it takes a lot of time and effort to grow it, such as making soil, but after transplanting the seedling to a swamp, it grows only with water from the swamp without any fertilizer.

Fujii Just in the flowing clean water.

After that, I still stopped shooting, but there used to be a "stone bath culture" around the Seto Inland Sea. There are two types of baths, one that is soaked in hot water and the other that is a steam bath, and the stone bath is a steam bath.

Is it like a Fujii sauna? In Scandinavia, that kind of culture remains, and there are areas that are used on a daily basis. Something is steamed in the middle of winter and goes into the Manma River or lake. Like going into a big pool.

It seems that there was little water in the Seto Inland Sea, and there was a flow of steam baths from the continent, so there were many stone baths a long time ago. The masonry dome-shaped one looks just like a charcoal kiln, but it seems that a natural cave was also used as a stone bath, where the branches and trees are heated to a very high temperature. It is said that a hot bonfire is squeezed out, a rather soaked seawater is laid on it, and seaweeds such as stone show and eelgrass are laid on it and lie down on it. The last one that used to operate the old-fashioned stone bath remained.

Unfortunately, the store was closed, but I took pictures for about 8 months until the store closed. It's intensely interesting. A long time ago, a cave dug to hide a military ship was converted into a stone bath, and men and women of all ages were mixed, and everyone was smiling, shiny, and already a paradise. I took a stone bath, sweated, jumped into the sea in front of me, set up an octopus trap in the sea in front of me, and put the octopus caught there on the charcoal stove that hit the stone bath. Bake it in and share it with everyone.

Fujii : Just listening to it sounds really good. (Smile)

In order to take a stone bath, first, all the miscellaneous trees that the local people have come up with when caring for the mountains are stored and the branches are burned. Also, in the old Seto Inland Sea, there were so many eelgrass everywhere that the boats couldn't move, so the farmers cut the eelgrass and used it as fertilizer. It is a bath that can be connected to the sea and mountains by having them divided and using it as a stone bath.

Fujii Please make it into a work. Thank you very much.