Jose Torres (1959)

Calificación de los usuarios:

7.9/10   

Director:

Hiroshi Teshigahara

Género:

Documental | Corto

Comentarios de los usuarios:

A brilliant example of visual storytelling

Reparto

José Torres	...	Himself
Hisashi Igawa	...	Narrator
Sen Yano	...	Narrator

Duración:

Japan:25 min

País:

Japan

Idioma:

Japonés

Color:

Negro y Blanco

Compañía:

Teshigahara Productions

Conexiones de Película:

Seguido por Jose Torres II (1965)

A brilliant example of visual storytelling

In 1959 Hiroshi Teshigahara went to the United States with a 16mm camera and made a documentary on the life of the Puerto Rican boxer Jose Torres, who won a silver medal in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. Shot in New York training gyms, boxing rings, and city streets, Teshigahara meets NY's natural seedy ambiance halfway with his grainy black and white footage and Toru Takemitsu's as usual excellent score, the result a short but brilliant example of visual storytelling, almost completely silent save for a few lines of Japanese delivered via voice-over. This is obviously a different kind of documentary. While the subject (Torres himself or boxing in general) might have held some kind of personal interest to Teshigahara, 50 years later it's not the subject that matters but the light in which the director holds and examines it. Starting with aerial shots of NYC and following Torres through hard training in gyms, small moments of casual relaxation playing cards, intimate moments of recollection, and culminating after a boxing match with the sad sight of a deserted boxing ring, empty seats and the floor strewn with tickets and coffee cups, Jose Torres seems to harken back to the kind of silent visual storytelling that all but disappeared in all the clamour of the advent of sound. I don't suspect any one but Teshigahara fans will look out for it but they won't be disappointed if they do.