A film like an Impressionist painting; the kind of paintings to have titles like ‘urban view from the artist’s studio’. The film is largely set in the film-maker’s home and the street in the provincial town of Aichi where he lives. Minor everyday incidents are observed poetically; the melancholy mood of the images is boosted by serene electronic music. There is no dialogue; the sound track only comprisesstreets sounds as well as the music. Loose, almost nonchalant impressions of the street or of cloudy skies are juxtaposed with posed, almost photographic mildly homo-erotic portraits of friends of the film-maker.Tarch Trip is made up of fragments of a cinematographic diary, which are however not edited chronologically. Two periods alternate. One is characterised rain and dark cloudy skies. The other is sunny and repeatedly accompanied by three friends The rain shots only have two people in them. Someone is missing. His jacket is draped on the floor and his photo laid on it – Tarch Trip has been described as a representation of Buddhism in the age of AIDS.The style of the film is contemplative. Jump-cuts in the cutting and the orange flaming of the emulsion of a roll of negative are the only modest experimental ingredients in the film.
