The Koumiko Mystery at the Orson Welles Wednesday through Saturday

RECENT AMERICAN documentarians such as Leacock, Pennebaker, and the brothers Maysles have identified themselves with the the cinemaverite movement. According to their work, cinemaverite's "truthfulness" requires a chance meeting between subject and camera, where there is no time to bother with meaningful composition or cogent verbal statements. They assume that neither occurs in "real" life and thus has no place in "truth cinema". For them the presence of the camera (cinema) is only another aspect of truth, one which is expressed either by incessant zooms or reflections of the camera in the nearest mirror. Their films never appear to be structured, since this would betray their vision of reality.

Certain similarities between Chris Marker's The Koumiko Mystery and the American documentaries seem to imply a common basic premise. The choice of "real" subject matter, the use of television programs and political commentary, the inclusion of footage which could not have been preplanned (the Tokyo Olympic Games for example), and the apparently random way Marker orders his material suggest the same realities as do the Americans.

The Koumiko Mystery emerges, however, as a very tightly structured work of art, one that illustrates clearly that the presence of the camera transforms reality, placing it firmly in the hands of the director who can order it however he will.

Koumiko Muroaka is a woman, who, we are told, Marker "met by accident" when he was filming the Tokyo Olympics. She is apolitical, extremely beautiful, highly independent, and, Marker insists, representative of nothing other than herself. The film consists of Marker's visions of Tokyo, his visions of Koumiko, his visions of Tokyo as tempered by Koumiko, and Koumiko's visions of herself as interpreted by Marker. Instead of treating these sequentially, Marker intercuts these segments, making sure to indicate clearly which point of view is being given. Multiple points of view, equally valid and independent, destroy any direct causal relationship between Koumiko and the city of Tokyo. Both exist and are conscious of each other, but to explain Tokyo would no more solve the Koumiko mystery than explaining Koumiko would solve Tokyo.

Marker is especially careful not to integrate Koumiko and the city whenever the two come in direct contact. Koumiko is isolated when she is walking, behind a train window when she looks at the countryside, or present on the soundtrack but absent from the screen. In one sequence, we see Koumiko walking down a street next to a man whose face is obscured by a mirror he is carrying. Koumiko herself is not reflected in the mirror. She repeatedly looks to her right, then turns her head to see the same view in the mirror. As she does so the film switches back and forth between black and white and color. Marker thus presents us with visions which are qualitatively different, yet does not comment on their respective validity. That they both exist is sufficient.

This is a key to the whole film. While apparently feeling constrained to show tradition and the recent westernization in close proximity, Marker carefully avoids cutting which would imply an ironic intent. No attempt is made to explain the westernization of Japan, nor is the modern seen as un-Japanese. Like Koumiko and the city, tradition and modernity exist within the same framework, and any effect that the one has upon the other is not readily discernible to the outsider. The outsider can merely present an image, which is nothing more than a concrete memory.

Given this, we begin to see why the Koumiko mystery cannot be solved. From the first shot of Koumiko, an extreme close-up of her eyes, she is seen as a love object. Since the film was edited in France (a fact purposely presented to the audience), it is clear that Koumiko is a memory. Marker is an outsider to Koumiko not only because he is a European but because he is a man. (The similarities between this and Hiroshima, Mon Amour are obvious and, I believe, intentional.) Solving the mystery would destroy the romantic quality both of the woman and of the memory.

A romantic vision which depends on maintaining mystery, on refusing to give rational explanations of people and cities, is one which denies the possibilities of objective truth. By using documentary materials to establish a romantic truth. Marker places himself in a diametrically opposite position from the American documentarians. For Marker, truth is a subset of cinema. TERRY CURTIS FOX