Meiro Koizumi

Much of Meiro Koizumi’s (1976, Gunma, JP) work deals with the power and complexity of human beings. In "Double Projection" we see the protagonist, an old Japanese man, struggling to face his own past, which is enveloped by guilt. There is a tension at work between the man’s recollections of his own traumatic past, and the manner in which he is being scripted by Koizumi to talk about this. This tension creates an intriguing border between fact and fiction. The leading character is Mr. Itazu, a kamikaze pilot who survived a mission to defend Okinawa in 1945 as his plane suffered engine failure. Death was the ultimate act of honor for kamikaze pilots and Itazu's failed flight was his supreme shame. Such survivors feel guilt over their companions who successfully and gloriously accomplished their kamikaze exploit, such as Mr. Ashida, Itazu's fellow pilot who died on the same mission and who Itazu plays in the video and has a fictitious conversation with. A double monologue of overlapping images thanks to which Mr. Itazu, as a medium, finally seems to gain forgiveness for his inability to fulfill his task. On 6th of April 2015, Mr. Itazu has passed away. He was the last living Kamikaze pilot who survived and one of the very few who had spoken out about his experience in public after the war.