Michael Omasta in conversation with Manfred Neuwirth

The first shot of the film was taken on a train and shows a couple leafing through a picture newspaper. Did this image give ‘manga train’ its title?

Well, not exactly. There are two terms that I associate very strongly with Japan. Manga means comic in Japanese, and comics are very much a part of Japan's image. Train, the train, is a cipher for movement, a motif of movement that is important for me in Japan. Much is defined by the great distances, the immense traffic, the constant motion. These two associations are linked in the shot. Besides, it was a very beautiful moment because the couple opened and closed the two parts of the newspaper synchronously – as if following a shared inner rhythm.

In terms of the design elements, ‘manga train’ could be seen as a kind of continuation of your film ‘Tibetan Recollections’. How did this develop?

If I may answer from a very general point of view, then I am interested in everything in art that crosses boundaries. In these two films, cinematic slow motion approaches photography, documentary original sounds become musical compositions, and different tempos between image and sound expand perception. There is a book title that expresses what I mean quite nicely: ‘How the Senses Go to Work’. This form of limiting oneself to slow motion and longer soundtracks actually originated during the work on the Tibet film: How can I concentrate more on certain things that I want to emphasise? That was once through the slow motion in the picture. The question of sound was a little more difficult, so I tried a number of different approaches. For example, to make the image in slow motion and not use any sound at all, but then suddenly everything took on such a meaning, the opposite of what I wanted to achieve – to find something special in the casualness of everyday images, so to speak. The slow motion alone always had something heavy, pregnant about it. It was only through the sound at normal speed that the images regained their ‘normal reference’.

Not only that, but the difference between normal sound and slow motion also increases the inner tension of the film, doesn't it?

Sure, it creates a certain tension, simply because the sound is sometimes ahead of the images, sometimes behind. ‘Tibetan Recollections’, which was created over a period of seven years, was therefore an end product of images and sounds that I hadn't yet consciously recorded with this aesthetic in mind. Now, with the film ‘manga train’, when I got the chance to go to Japan again, the concept was clearer from the start. I knew that I would shoot scenes that could be used in slow motion and add the sound in normal length. But I still try to film in a state of ‘casualness’, the shots arise from the emotion. The most beautiful moments are those where I don't care whether the camera is running or not. Of course it was also very exciting for me to experience these poles in this way and to juxtapose them: Tibet and Japan. When I think about it afterwards, history, the ephemeral, a yearning for the primordial and – not to be forgotten – political oppression are manifested in my images and sounds from Tibet. The shots from Japan represent – to put it a bit simplified – modernity, futurism and the created world.

The shots in ‘manga train’ are a bit longer, but are there any other differences in the design?

The slow motion in the Tibet film is very soft, while the one in ‘manga train’ has a slight stroboscopic effect. This was important to me because Japan, in terms of pace, acceleration, and simply from my visual impressions, is quite different from Tibet, triggering different perceptions.

How much do you know beforehand about what you will shoot and possibly need for the film?

For me, the best way to film is to go out and not know at all what to expect. I only know that today, for example, I'm going from Tokyo to Hakodate, which is a six-hour train ride, and I'll experience something there. Of course, on the way to the train station, I got stuck at a street festival and didn't leave for a few hours. I had no idea what to expect in Hakodate, so I just walked around. Very often, sound comes before images for me, in that I adjust to a place by first listening to what is going on there, and only then do I start with the camera. In this sense, I don't actually take the pictures, the pictures happen. The only thing I decided beforehand was that, in contrast to the Tibet film, I would stay in the urban area this time.

That means, I assume that the material costs are quite high. How do you proceed with the editing of such a film?

For ‘Tibetan Recollections’ I had about thirty hours of material. The film is twenty minutes long, but due to the slow motion, I actually only used four and a half minutes of footage. So in the editing process, my gaze, my hearing and my emotions are enormously condensed. For ‘manga train’ too, where I shot about nine hours of film, I sat at the editing table for three months. As for the lack of systematics when you let yourself go completely to emotional, spontaneous things while shooting, that changes the moment you start editing. That is systematic work, although I try to maintain the emotion for myself during the editing. So I don't sit at the computer for ten hours a day, but usually three, and watch the various edited versions over and over again in a wide range of moods.

Can you say something about the dramaturgy of ‘manga train’?

That is determined very strongly by the sound level. There are clear markers for me, but not in the sense of a classical dramaturgy, with a climax and then gone, but rather that there must be something like bridges over several shots that enable associations: the similar sound of completely different noises, for example, the change between loud and quieter scenes, etc. For example, the rattling of the Pachinko balls is followed a little later by the shot in the temple with the lucky lottery tickets, where there is another metallic-sounding noise. For me, the images there recede a little in the first step of the montage; this is a truly purely musical cut. The sound level was very important to me, I also listened to the sound alone, without pictures, to try out how it works. Are there holes in it? In the end, I reintroduced two shots into the film where the sound is very quiet, where you can only hear distant street noise. These few quiet moments are just as important, because otherwise the soundtrack has too much power all the time.

With the image, there are other aspects. Take, for example, the shot with the red bicycle: first a bird flutters into the picture, then someone gets on the bike, then two passers-by enter the picture, first only their shadows, then they themselves, walk past. This is a picture that shows exactly how I want to work, with different layers – layers in the sense of discovery – so that you can discover what else lies behind the images: When the reflection in the shop window is suddenly gone because of the shadows cast by the two people in front, and for a moment you can see what is depicted on the posters behind them. So it's a very strict dramaturgy, which is also highly emotional...
Taking pictures – that direct moment behind the camera – is the best part for me, that's when my emotions are strongest... And then there are the moments when something unexpected happens to you behind the camera, like the nuns in the Tibet film who suddenly start laughing wildly, or in ‘manga train’ the girls at the train station who, in a fleeting moment, carry out a perfect performance for me and the camera. What comes afterwards is mainly the editing of these emotions.

I know that you don't like the term travel film. Is that because of the undertone of exoticism or why?

I can only say that Japan or Tibet are no more exotic to me than, for example, the Waldviertel. I try to put myself in a state of heightened awareness and to react to the ‘ordinariness’. The films then consist of the experiences. Each shot has a story for me and is a little story. I really like the term ‘images of the fleeting world’, that comes close to my ideas.