Anti-Cosmos (Takashi Makino, 2023) (Patreon)

I've been following Makino's very distinctive filmmaking for a number of years, although I certainly have many films to catch up with. I have heard others speak of his work as if he does a particular "thing," and all of the films are essentially variations on that method. This doesn't really coincide with my own experience, since I have found the ones I've seen quite variable, and I found his 2021 film Microcosmos rather repetitive. I am perhaps getting the sense that Makino's work could be considered "visual music," to some extent. His films have certain elements in common with Jordan Belson, in the sense that they use a broad, diffuse compositional strategy and apply it to critical variations, of color, shape, and rhythm.

Anti-Cosmos is anchored by a low droning soundscape, with fairly constant tones creating a sonic atmosphere that matches the remarkable, mist-like visual forms. In a wide aspect ratio that invites comparisons to painting -- and I've already noted this film's affinities with Turner's late seascapes -- Anti-Cosmos activates the visual field with almost gaseous forms that both strive toward and resist solidity. Animating the material on a molecular level, Makino suggests three-dimensional action, as if the clouds were hurtling toward us, or the aether were sucking us in. This is an illusion, since the actual movement remains on the surface. It's his delicate, shifting hues, flowing like the chalk dust from pastels, that causes us to impute depth to the film, and in this respect Anti-Cosmos is a bit like the advanced, micro-tonal minimalist compositions of Terry Riley and LaMonte Young. 

This is a really exciting film, in part because it reclaims a particular kind of cinema that has been very popular in the digital age. It is probably possible to create computer code that will produce images like the ones seen in Anti-Cosmos, and a number of filmmakers have been turning to digital animation to create works that center on optical effects and illusions, since this kind of somatic cinema provides one kind of answer to the crisis of "content." Where many artists are turning towards narrative forms, however fractured, to stake out a meaningful position within the social discourse, others have employed Op Art style formalism as a way out of language.

Makino's film is an unusually strong example of this idiom, mainly because it is not concerned with being psychotropic or dazzling or edgy. Anti-Cosmos does not want to push the viewer to the limits of perception, like so much post-Sharits cinema being made in North American and especially Austria. Instead, Makino's film promotes a fairly active kind of perception, one that observes internal relationships, development across time, while also generating fluctuating affective responses. Enveloping and alienating in equal measure, Anti-Cosmos is meticulously composed. Its organization is not necessarily the point, but it does allow Makino to structure our experience very carefully across the film's running time. In this way, Anti-Cosmos is a firm but gentle rebuke to the "cool shit / just vibes" school of contemporary filmmaking.