Review: Gasaraki (2002)

From:
Directed by:
Cast: ,

Distributed in Australia by:

Dancing While Standing Still

Gasaraki is on the surface exactly what it appears to be – mysteries and experiments and secret organisations; a boy and a girl and dangerous destinies; advanced weaponry, military might and political scheming. It does not fail to deliver and is complex and intriguing enough to be enjoyed on this level with few shortcomings. But it is also more than this and that is where its greater strength lies. Look beneath its initial value. Think not of it in terms of a film to be watched but a dance to be interpreted, for in the finest, most subtle traditions of Japanese Noh performance from which it draws its main impetus, it is what is not seen that communicates the greater truth.

Noh is an art form that favours understatement and suggestion over declaration and explanation. It is theatre played on a bare stage with few props, an abstraction of reality made tangible by the presence and gesture of dancers who act as medium for the audience’s perception, who describe and build the elements of the story practically out of thin air. It has been claimed that its roots lie deep in ancient religious practice, in rituals performed by priestesses to encourage spirits to come down to earth, by shamans attaining the ecstatic frenzy of possession and in Shinto tradition and worship. The movements and gestures of the dance are all precisely calculated, controlled, refined and there is as much meaning in and significance to taking a single step as a great leap. Nothing occurs without a specific reason and to a specific end, that end being the communication of something greater than is immediately visible and so the story being performed takes shape not in front of the viewer but in the viewer’s imagination.

Gasaraki, beneath its surface, is more play than anime in this respect, its elements deliberate like the gestures of a Noh performer, the implications and inferences taking on greater weight than the visible proceedings. The introduction of each character, the timing of each event is revealed like steps in the dance, controlled and measured and deliberate. Truth is at first hidden, camouflaged by what occurs on the surface; and is something only given definition gradually by the principal dancer, the character of Yushiro. Through him events become significant, through him each element is connected. His thoughts appear in haiku at the commencement of each chapter, yet within the context of the episodes it is his silences that command the viewer’s attention. As the Gowa family’s Noh performer, he is both powerless, a tool to their greater, hidden purpose, and the focus of power, a medium without which they would fail in their questionable endeavours. But as well as this and at a deeper level he is not only a character in the story but a device to propel the story forward, providing the gestures necessary to interpret the story and without which the viewer would have nothing, an empty stage devoid of purpose.

The pace of the story is also a measured, controlled thing. Action takes place like the sudden leaps and cries a real Noh performance, but meaning resides in the deliberately understated gestures, in moments of seeming inactivity where there is in fact much more going on than might be first realised. It is this combination of action and inaction, silence and significance that makes Gasaraki well worth the effort.

There is a sense of grace about Gasaraki that is impossible to ignore, a feeling of inevitability, of gravity. It’s like a heightened state of awareness, where what is happening might not be immediately visible, but its presence is nonetheless felt. The dance commencing with the episodes of the first DVD, The Summoning, and continuing in the second, The Circle Opens is something that once started cannot be stopped. As powerful and mesmerising as the art from which it draws its inspiration, this anime is one to watch and keep watching. Do not miss a step, absorb each detail, and let the dance take you where it will, for in the end when the curtain closes, there is no doubt what you will have done is not watched but experienced.

9 Tranced Noh Dancers out of 10.
Bookmark the permalink.