Product Description
Released June 24th 2026. In 1983 French director Elizabeth Leonard met Ryuichi Sakamoto in Berlin who was there for the recording of David Sylvian. A plan was made for the following May 1984, to film Sakamoto as he began recording his fourth solo album, 'Ongaku Zukan' ( Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia ). After its completion in 1985, the film was screened at international film festivals in Rotterdam, Locarno, and Sao Paulo, and was released in Japan at the first Tokyo International Film Festival in the same year. The film was later televised in France in 1986 and released on VHS and DVD, but after that became extremely hard to find. Recently, a 16mm film was discovered in a warehouse, and after restoration, the film was digitized. This is the long-awaited packaging of the film after a lapse of about 40 years.The film was shot in Tokyo in a short period of only one week.Tokyo Melody combines interviews with Ryuichi Sakamoto, concert footage of Yellow Magic Orchestra, and scenes of Sakamoto recording the album. These shots are stylized with shots of traditional festivals, street dancers, the urban environment, and city life in 1980s Tokyo. Lennard has described the film as 'the sounds of Tokyo seen through the eyes of, and a portrait of, Sakamoto'.
The camera follows Sakamoto hand-transcribing music on paper and testing it out on piano as he speaks of the challenges of composing. He eats dinner in the studio and discusses the intensive selection process involved in assembling a track list for an album. Sakamoto demonstrates the use of a Fairlight CMI digital synthesizer loaded with floppy discs to create samples and loops which can also be rendered visually on a monitor.He then returns to the giant screen, this time playing footage from commercials he appeared in. The camera cuts to short sequences of Japanese street festivals and groups of celebrants carrying an omikoshi, which segues to concert footage of YMO playing the song "Tong Poo" on stage. The live footage is interleaved with a scene filmed by Lennard in which Sakamoto and then-wife Akiko Yano play a duet of 'Tong Poo' on their grand piano at home.
The film is noted for featuring scenes of 1980s Tokyo, including Shibuya Scramble Crossing, Shinjuku Alta, and Harajuku's Takenoko Zoku, along with Sakamoto, then 32, talking about his childhood memories, changing culture and society, the creative process, and the music he is pursuing. This film is a rare portrait of the source of his contemplation and creativity, and a documentary that allows the viewer to experience the sound of Tokyo.
