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Sakamoto filmed the live performance over every week in September 2022. He and the movie’s director, his son, Neo Sora, meticulously designed the look of the film, together with storyboards to point out how the lighting would change. It is a type of monochromatic tackle the shifting of sunshine as morning turns to afternoon, then night. By the top, Sakamoto seems to be enjoying in inky blackness, with one mild standing in for the moon shining over his left shoulder.
The motive for this curiosity in invoking the passage of time is easy: Sakamoto knew his days have been numbered. In 2014, he was identified with throat most cancers. His restoration was documented within the 2018 movie “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda,” however in 2021 he was identified with rectal most cancers. He died in March 2023, about six months after filming “Opus,” at age 71.
Sakamoto is, for probably the most half, not visibly affected within the movie. Piano efficiency is extra demanding than it’d seem, however Sakamoto’s face exhibits, for probably the most half, sheer pleasure — an invigorated happiness on the privilege of getting put these notes collectively, of having the ability to take pleasure in them anew. Yet at one second about midway into the movie, he struggles to recall a sure passage, and murmurs about being exhausted. It’s briefly stunning, a sudden be aware of fallibility injected into what was showing to be an ideal efficiency. This, we notice, is tough, and draining — a life’s work packed into every week.
Included within the musical picks are some numbers that Sakamoto hadn’t beforehand carried out as solo piano preparations, like “The Wuthering Heights” (composed because the theme for the 1992 movie). There are new preparations of outdated songs, similar to “Tong Poo,” which was first launched as a single from the 1978 synth-pop debut album of Sakamoto’s band, Yellow Magic Orchestra. And there are acquainted favorites, particularly “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence,” composed for the 1983 movie, during which Sakamoto additionally starred alongside David Bowie.
But for me, the songs aren’t the purpose of “Opus.” The camerawork, efficiency, lighting and music all add as much as one thing bigger than their particular person elements. One audible component is Sakamoto’s use of the pedals, which on a grand piano have completely different functions, all designed to change the life and timbre of the be aware.
