Grandrieux is not in a hurry to introduce Masao Adachi, a radical Japanese Red Army member/filmmaker who preached armed struggle in the 60s. Beauty starts with Adachi, an affable white haired old man narrating free association style while pushing his granddaughter in a swing. With his usual hand held camera, Grandrieux walks among the Japanese crowd in Shinjuku, takes a taxi ride and retraces the steps of Tarkovsky's Solaris (driving scene). Adachi tells an anecdote about reading Jean Genet's Thief's Journal out loud with Oshima while writing The Diary of Shinjuku Thief. Adachi to Grandrieux is a hero, because he's always been trying to find a new ways to looking at the world socially and aesthetically. "Cinema moves from one film to another through time, above and beyond those who make it." Grandrieux muses. Less a biography than an examination of difficulties integrating art in politics/life in a meaningful way, Beauty is a beautiful and contemplative documentary I won't soon forget.
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