Humans record history. First, the representational mediums (paper, canvas, tablets). Then, the invention of the camera: the verisimilar representational (the photo). And then, verisimilar representation in time (the video). The possibility of recording history in real-time emerges here. Here, an advancement. Takashi Ito creates a mechanism to engrave the suprareal.
Long exposure lets in more light, and time compresses itself in a continuous fashion. There are various ways to compress time. In Koyaanisqatsi, time is compressed through timelapses. Song of Avignon superimposes multiple frames as discrete elements of a single frame. Although the latter happens in Grim, it distinctly compresses time through long exposure. As a result, creating a kind of suprareal: the apparitional space. That empty apartment, replete with unoccupied space, acts as a projective canvas for apparitions: inanimate apparitions (television, walls, furniture) and an apparition (a subject). A projective space filled by the texture of apparition.
Certain films prompt you to make movies. In fact, for two distinct reasons. An exceptional film that leaves you no choice but to create art. And cinema whose relaxed constraints (financial, equipment, …) reveal a possibility that creation is within reach. Grim achieves both. This is cinema at its highest. Ito produces something singular from a studio apartment: creation approximating ex nihilo.