Toshio Matsumoto (1932-2017)
Mona Lisa (1973)
Duration: 2:59

Mona Lisa is Dadaism in the vein of Duchamps ready-mades even using the Da Vinci painting favored by the Frenchman. Cubism also informs Matsumoto's short pieces. The analyzing of objects through their dismantling is a theme present in his later shorts namely the three films he made in the early 1980s: Connection Shift and Relation. The musical score often by long time collaborator Toshi Ichiyanagi add to the surrealism of Matsumotos works. As a body of work Matsumotos short films share the theme of changed perspective deconstructing his subjects to the point of unfamiliarity. If art imitates life it is no surprise that the destruction an social upheaval in Japan brought on by the Second World War would produce such an affect on the filmmaker.