Immanent and Transcendent

(Ozu directing)

Before speaking about the transcendental structure of Ozu's movies, it is worth to clarify some terms.

Transcendental movies and mystical movies are of different kind: think at Ozu and Tarkovski. Mystical and religious movies are of different kind: think at Tarkovsky and Defillipis.

Not all transcendental movies follow the structure used by Ozu or Bresson: think at some transcendental movies of Pasolini.

Not all creators of transcendental movies are believers: again, think at Pasolini.

The existence of transcendental and the existence of divinity are issues of different kind. Simply put, we live in the immanent and everything beyond our power of understanding belongs to the transcendent. Some of us believe in one or more gods, some don't. Some say that we invented gods in order to protect ourselves of our fears. Only gods, whether they are there in the transcendent, or not, do not need to be invented by us in order to exist: our powers exist only in the immanent.

I would ask myself whether we did not invent rather history than gods; it means a sense for our events: just in order to protect ourselves of our fears. Because history exists in the immanent: it is under our control.

It is said that Western civilizations live in History, while eastern civilizations live in Cosmos; it is a way to say that the East is more inclined toward the Transcendental.

Hence the movies of Ozu :) Just kidding.


(Filmofilia)