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Yukichi Watabe
A Criminal Investigation
HC, 21 x 29 cm., 100 pp. s/w-ill. engl./frz.
Barral / Le Bal 2011

Ein wirklich bemerkenswertes Buch aus dem Hause unseres sehr geschätzten Kollegen, Sebastian Hau in Paris: Der junge Fotojournalist hat 1958 die Gelegenheit, die Arbeit eines Polizisten aus Tokyo in der japanischen Provinz zu dokumentieren. Ausgangspunkt ist ein Mordfall, der sich entgegen dem ersten Anschein nicht als bloße Routine entpuppt. Um es vorweg zu sagen: der Fall wird in diesem Buch nicht aufgeklärt! Bemerkenswert ist - neben der Gestaltung und der besonderen Druckqualität der S/W-Aufnahmen - die Interaktion zwischen dem erfahrenen Detektiv und dem jungen Fotografen. So werden wir auf hohem Niveau Zeuge seines in Szene gesetzten Scheiterns.

"On January 14th 1958 the dusfigured and mutilated body of man was discovered near lLake Sembako, Japan. Two Tokyo detectives were sent to help local authorities quickly wrap up what seemed to be a routine case." The young photojournalist Yukichi Watabe was allowed to shadow the investigators, which "turned out to be anything but (routine)". (Barral)
"Thus the photographer documents an intermediate situation - neither the moment of the murder, nor that of the arrest ? akin to a search for identity. By following the scattered clues, Watabe embraces this subtle turning-point there is in any investigation, when the detective puts himself in the killer?s shoes so as to adopt his way of thinking. And when the man dissolves, there surfaces a Japan that is still hesitating between its pre-war geography and a new, urban visage, symbol of its spectacular recovery.
Following the extended metaphor of troubled identity, the codes no longer belong to photography only but also to cinema: a sequential logic, a certain linearity and a completely narrative framing: images unfold and involve the onlooker. Shot after shot, the mystery is engulfing those in charge of solving it." (Dalpine)

 


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