• Issue
  • Nov 01, 2023

Tokyo: After the Landscape Theory

ADACHI MASAO, IWABUCHI SUSUMU, NONOMURA MASAYUKI, YAMAZAKI YUTAKA, SASAKI MAMORU, and MATSUDA MASAO, A.K.A. Serial Killer, 1969, 4K single-channel projection (original 35mm): 86 min. Courtesy Tokyo Photographic Art Museum.

“Landscape theory” (fukeiron), as theorized in 1969 by film critic and anarchist Matsuda Masao, states that the landscape of modern Japan is banal in its sameness and that this homogeneity is a product of the state’s authoritarian structure. The center reproduces itself in the periphery to the point that any dichotomy is flattened; there is no more hometown, only a longing to understand the nation’s hometown: Tokyo.