Shimpan AKA Trial AKA Der Prozess (1975)
By Terayama Shuji
The most important example of the so-called "participated movies" (kankyaku sanka no eiga, Terayama 1983, 214) is Shinpan (The Trial, 1975, also known as Der Prozess) 11 which brings actors and public to act together on the screen. Shinpan was defined as "the nail film" (kugi no eiga, Asai 1981, 9) – and could have been nothing else, as nails are present in every scene. They appear in a series of narratively unconnected scenes in which the actors perform repetitive movements with small variations. Shimizu compares this pattern with the production process of anime and manga, where every drawing differs from the next one in an almost indiscernible way (cf. Shimizu 2012, 275). The above actions are always related to the theme of nails, which change shape, function and size scene by scene. However, they are never represented as simple objects, but gradually become metonyms for language, weapons, sexual organs and, in the end, human passions (cf. Terayama 1983, 213). As Hirose duly noted (2005, 180), every time a nail is hammered into something, its tip seems to be directed towards the relative object of desire. The only recurring image throughout Shinpan is that of a naked man stagg…
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