Craft Night Meiro Koizumi

In Craft Night Meiro Koizumi really pushes this man to go deeper into the traumatic experience of losing is father in his life. The clay is just a distraction masked as a craft to keep his hands busy and allow his mind to wonder while the voice pokes and prods the man with questions about his father leaving.

The performance was broken into stages of intensity it starts of mild and grows. At first the man seems to play along, he is relaxing while he molds the clay and answers the man’s questions. He is working with the clay and clearly has no idea what he is doing with the clay but he keeps trying. His lack of artistic ability is quite comical, and you begin to wonder if he is even trying or paying attention to what he is doing.
The scene would not be so odd if the man’s lip was not bleeding and the room wasn’t so dark, all inferring that this cannot be just a simple craft night as the title implies.

The good thing about this performance being a video is that the viewer can track the physical changes the man goes through as he gets further irritated with this craft night.
The first time the voice says he wants to start over the man is not happy about it but goes along. The difference this time is he is moving faster and more clumsily trying to make the session end faster. It is clear he is irritated and distracted, while trying to be polite.

The man complains that his hands hurt and he just wants water. It is unclear if he wants the water to drink or to make the clay easier to mold. Water usually makes it easier for people to talk when they are upset. They drink the water and their mouth is no longer dry and uncomfortable its easier to speak. Drinking water would also give the man a moment to pause and collect his thoughts, something the voice doesn’t not want. He wants him to work through the tough spots and continue on until he successfully makes the sculpture or has and emotional break through. The voice does not want this process to be easy.

He is asked why his parents divorced he answers them snippily “non of your business”. He demands water and begins to yell when he is denied and seemly ignored. At this point he is looking directly into the camera and it’s hard to tell if he is yelling at the audience or the voice behind the camera.

This part is significant of this interrogation because the viewer becomes a participant in the performance at a tense moment in the film. The man clearly doesn’t want to continue, he is tired and under duress and is simple asking for water. As a bystander is the audience supposed to get involved and bring this man water or even make the questioning stop allowing the man to leave. But as a viewer I just sat there and let it continue.

He yells at the voice that is simple patronizing him with calm refusals to his demands for water. Then there is a jump in the film; it cuts off but only for a quick moment. When the film comes back on the man is still at the table working the clay, and it appears a little less hard. It is unclear whether he received water or not during the unscheduled break.

The man begins to complain more so about how his hands hurt and he just wants some water. As the clay gets harder so does the man’s ability to rehash his past feelings about his father. He is really struggling with the clay and with reliving his bad memories about his father.

The end scene is very traumatic as the man recalls the memories of his father for the last time. His hands are working this clay but he is not even looking at it anymore. It is clear his mind is somewhere else. He relives how his father wasn’t there for him after the divorce; in the first story he makes excuses for his dad. He was a doctor he was very busy and lived far away, but not this time he simple accepts that his dad wasn’t there for him, he didn’t call or visit. His face is tense and saddened as he tells the story, then he remembers the last time his dad came to visit him with exact detail, August 26 and he was in the 6th grade. His dad was trying to be nice and he lost his temper and broke the toy he brought for him and his dad died to months later.

The ending was shocking and unexpected; it was completely unknown that his father was trying to make amends. It becomes clear why the man was avoiding sharing this memory with the voice behind the camera because of his deep regret for mistreating his dad before his death and never being able not fix the relationship. Suddenly the voice begins to shout “Stop Stop” he runs toward the man and physically removes his hands from the clay, which is now mush because he had been squeezing it so tightly he forgot it was in his hands. The voice from behind the camera brings him some water even though he had not finished his sculpture it was clear the man could go no further, and the voice got the emotional break down he was seeking.