Neuwirth's MANGA TRAIN (21') consists of 30 short scenes shot in Japan, which were stretched from an original length of eight seconds each to 40 seconds each using slow motion. The camera is mostly, but not always, motionless. The original sound, in contrast to the image, runs at normal speed, creating a very special tension that sometimes plunges the spatially close images into the distant sphere of memory. MANGA TRAIN practises a careful, reserved way of looking at a foreign culture, but does not present an Olympic Lumière gaze; instead, it presents mostly subjectively selected details. These close-ups do not claim to be representative, nor do they want to impose themselves as some kind of definite or unambiguous image of Japan. Neuwirth confronts us with a ‘personal film album’ from which we can make our own selections while watching and create our own images. The film does not provide any explanations, so that some things may well remain incomprehensible without additional information. For the most part, however, we see everyday and supposedly familiar things (‘Sumo, Sushi, Surround Sound,’ Michael Omasta). One of the qualities of Neuwirth's film is that it is able to open up the ‘familiar’ for renewed viewing through its special presentation. Last but not least, MANGA TRAIN also contains ‘empty’ scenes in which the activity that takes place at the shown location at a different time or at the same time, but mainly outside the image space, is conveyed only through the soundtrack.

Thomas Korschil, In: Meteor Special Edition Diagonale 1998

Japanese Memories

In 1998, Medienwerkstatt Wien celebrates its 20th anniversary: this week with the Viennese premiere of Manfred Neuwirth's short film ‘manga train’.

A short fade-out, a short fade-in: a black screen, each lasting one second, divides the film into thirty shots. The analogy to a ‘photo album’ is deliberate: just as the individual pictures usually all have the same format, here the length of the shots is always the same. Eight seconds of film, reproduced in five times slow motion (the sound is not affected; it plays at normal speed, but is no longer synchronised with the images).

Manfred Neuwirth developed this concept three years ago when editing his film ‘Tibetan Recollections’ – an aesthetic principle that stands in stark contrast to his usual spontaneous way of filming, which reacts to random events and impressions. Nothing is explained in ‘manga train’ either; the emotional context has to be right: street scenes, a view of a half-weathered mud wall in a stone Zen garden, a Pachinko hall, the opening ritual of a Sumo wrestling match, a family on the beach, young women leaving a train station, the falling of freshly cut leaves in a garden, a car commercial on television, a lush green landscape behind the slightly steamed up window of a moving train. The images in the film are everyday snapshots. Neuwirth shot them in Tokyo, Osaka, Hakodate and Kyoto: some remain unintelligible, but most are only explained by the sound. The filmmaker is not concerned with ‘re-translating’ something from one culture to another, because if you look hard enough, Tibet or Japan are about as close or foreign as, say, the upper Waldviertel. In this sense, like all of Neuwirth's works, ‘manga train’ is less a travelogue than a film about existence.

The founding of the Medienwerkstatt in 1978 was the result of the spirit of optimism in Viennese ‘subculture’ that, as is well known, also favoured, among other things, the emergence of the first communal cinema (Z-Club) or a certain alternative city newspaper (Falter). Manfred Neuwirth (44) is one of the founding members of this video production and distribution cooperative. He has always worked as a cameraman, editor and director in the field between avant-garde and documentary film. His best-known works include ‘ASUMA’ (with Gerda Lampalzer and Gustav Deutsch, 1982), ‘Erinnerungen an ein verlorenes Land’ (1988), ‘Vom Leben Lieben Sterben - Erfahrungen mit Aids’ (together with Walter Hiller, 1993) and ‘Tibetische Erinnerungen’ (1995). The narrowness of this area can be seen not least from the fact that although the majority of the films mentioned were shot on video, their success was mainly achieved through cinema.

‘manga train’ is no exception, although it was intended for screening on the big screen. The rhythm of the film is determined by the sound, a constant alternation between loud and quiet, speech and noise, loudspeaker announcements and street noise. You can turn it up as long as you like at home on your Sony stereo – but you won't hear much of the sound, which allows you to make associations between the individual shots and understand how they are arranged in the film. It's an upside-down world. The modesty and care with which Manfred Neuwirth has designed his new video film still look much better in the cinema than all the big Austrian feature films released so far this year put together.

Michael Omasta in: Falter 22/98

Manga Train

Thirty gently moving travel images, thirty brief impressions of Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto, in slow motion, sound and colour: Manfred Neuwirth's latest video work, called ‘manga train’, sums up Japan lyrically, looking out of train windows and onto rainy streets, into nocturnal cityscapes and lonely entertainment centres. The foreign and the global move closer together: an audiovisual approach to the melancholy of a highly industrialised world, musically edited, sensually photographed.

Stefan Grissemann, Die Presse 3.6.98

Manga Train

Thirty shots played in five instances of slow motion. Sometimes the sound is ahead of the images, sometimes delayed. Rotating sushi plates, fighting sumo wrestlers and rocking Japanese people, accompanied by rhythmic surround sound.

After his ‘Tibetan Recollections’, Austrian filmmaker Manfred Neuwirth embarked on a cinematic journey through Tokyo, Osaka, Hakodate and Kyoto, bringing back images and sounds that tell of everyday life in Japan. The title of the film reflects the image of Japan. ‘Manga means comic in Japanese, and comics are very much part of the Japanese identity. Train, the train, is a cipher for movement, a motif of movement that is important for me in Japan. Much is defined by sweeping movements, the immense traffic, the constant motion,’ says the director.

True beauty does not seem to be invisible for Neuwirth; with his camera, he has tracked down rare, everyday moments that trigger a flood of associations in the viewer. On the street, in buildings, on escalators, in subway stations, in gardens, at markets, in trains – with his sensitive perception, Neuwirth has come across dream-like images that he literally makes clatter, crash, hum, thunder and sing.

The images in ‘manga train’ follow the rhythms of everyday sounds and, in their totality, condense into a soundscape of Japanese culture that seems equally artificial, fractal and primeval. Neuwirth has captured the fleetingness of an Asian country that seems no more or less exotic than other worlds. If you listen closely, you can hear the clacking of pachinko balls everywhere, provided you are still capable of amazement.

gaschu, media biz 06/98