Invisible People (2024)

Master Yoshito Ohno—son of Butoh founder Kazuo Ohno, who passed away during the shooting of this film—leads this transformative exploration of Butoh, the unique Japanese contemporary dance born from natural experience, expressed without moves or intentional meaning, that represents a communion between the living and the dead. In Butoh, “the shapes are not important but the gaps between those shapes are,” and this is incorporated in the film’s own form, through omission, cranking and reverse-motion effects, unexplained blinking, strobing and static cutaways. Invisible People endeavours to become Butoh—an expression free of meaning—and breaks the documentary mold, using sound design and atmospherics to communicate the true power of its philosophical, meditative and artistic ideals. What we don’t see is the point of seeing. Becoming a ghost is the goal. Realizing that doing nothing has as much effect as doing something is all part of Butoh’s mysterious message in this tale of fate, strange connections and serendipity.