Nejime Shoichi

Director Jun Ichikawa spins this affectionate portrait of the people who populate Shimokitazawa, a bohemian corner of Tokyo filled with small theater companies and smoky coffeehouses.

This work was made as a "myth" with the poet Nejime Shoichi as the main character. Nejime Shoichi, who aims to be a reading poet, rides a train to visit senior poet Iwao Abe and asks for the secret of reading. Nejime Shoichi is good at being "naked".

The year before, I had made a film about the poet Tsutomu Shotsu, and I wanted to make a film about Hiromi Ito, a young female poet on the rise. As I was talking with her, she told me that she loves to pull out hair, and when I asked her about it, her story touched on the sense of life. I decided to film her talking about it. She said that when she pulls out her own hair, she gets excited because she is aware of both herself pulling out and herself being pulled out. Skin is a problem, she said. As I was filming, I was surprised to find that her story had become a great theory of the body. For the introduction, I borrowed a song by Hikashu. Produced in 1981. The artist was 46 years old. (Suzuki Shiroyasu).