Security Treaty

Gengobe Satsuma, an exiled samurai cast out as an Asano clan retainer, is given a second chance to join his brothers in arms to become the 48th Ronin against the Shogunate. His faithful servant gathers the 100 ryo required for his acceptance. Gengobe is also in love with a greedy geisha named Koman. About to be sold to another man, Gengobe learns that in order to keep her, her debt is exactly 100 ryo.

There's more to picture than meets the eye in this journey into oriental metaphysical imagery. Starting (in a very Christian manner) with the Word, the film draws an explosion of visible forms, as if a sign of the shattering of shapes in the mundane world. But time is cyclical, of course, and what was once a multitude of sensible realities must eventually return to the Word and, finally, to sheer Color. (Sound of Eye)

In 1960s Tokyo, Gonda owns a bar in which the gay, cross-dresser, and trans scenes meet. Gonda is in a relationship with the madam of the bar, Leda. As the younger Eddie starts a passionate affair with Gonda, she ignites the jealousy of Leda, unaware of another kind of history between them.

Repetitive abstract experimental film. A bearded man flickers past a hundred times.

'Ki or Breathing' is a spare concoction assembled from slow motion shots of nature and set to a score by the much-acclaimed Tohru Takemitsu.

Pictures from a Buddhist temple cut up and manipulated.

A 20-year-old drifter and a precocious 16-year-old girl slowly form a bond in a small town haunted by its wartime past.

A young man murders his new bride and goes insane. He wakes in an asylum with no memory, left in the hands of two mysterious doctors who relate his condition with his biological identity.

ĀTMAN is a visual tour-de-force based on the idea of the subject at the centre of the circle created by camera positions (480 such positions). Shooting frame-by-frame the filmmaker set up an increasingly rapid circular motion. ĀTMAN is an early Buddhist deity often connected with destruction; the Japanese aspect is stressed by the devil mask of Hangan, from the Noh, and by using both Noh music and the general principle of acceleration often associated with Noh drama.

Towards the end of WWII, a black American pilot is captured and imprisoned by rural Japanese villagers, who await official instructions as to how to proceed with their 'catch'.

While extracting and polishing their blocks of stone, stonecutters used to say “the stone is coming to life". This paradox provided Matsumoto with the best metaphor for what making a film is all about. In his opinion, filmmakers work images in the same way that stonecutters work stones.

Documentary about the relationships between mothers and their children.

A mesmerizing trip through the psychedelic vastness of space.

Engram is a three-part piece revolving around a few good old ideas such as photos inside of photos, movies inside of movies, photos inside of movies, movies inside of photos, and (even) a film director inside a TV set.

Writes Matsumoto, "I used the Erekutoro Karapurosesu (Electro Color Processor), which is mainly used in the field of medicine and engineering, to create moving image textures Metastasis, I was interested in layering images of a simple object and its electronically processed abstraction. The electronic abstract image is manipulated in a certain rhythm, depicting an organic process."

It was produced to be exhibited at the “Personal Focus” (April 23-8, 1985), a three-minute, 8mm film screening held in Fukuoka. Digitized the original 8mm film that Matsumoto had been stored. The concept of this works is same as Delay Exposure, but in this film, it begins with a sequence that sets the aperture to excessive exposure. During a one to two-second-long shoot, the camera zooms in, the automatic exposure device also follows the movement of the image, and immediately lights the screen with proper exposure. This short sequence combined with a series of shots in the background, is processed.