Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus – Hyde Park Picture House x Brudenell Piano Sessions
Tom Grieve, Cinema Editor
Presented exactly a year after his passing, Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus is an intimate concert film created from the final performances given by the legendary pianist and composer before his death at 71. The film is directed by the composer’s son, Neo Sora, who worked with his father to produce a moving, career-spanning swan song, fully aware of Sakamoto’s impending mortality.
Situated at a Yamaha grand piano with no audience, Opus features twenty pieces curated and performed wordlessly by Sakamoto, with choices from his techno-pop Yellow Magic Orchestra period, his famous film scores including Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence and The Last Emperor, and his meditative final album 12, as well as compositions he’d never before played publicly in this way.
Filming took place in over the course of a week in September 2022 at Studio 509 within Tokyo’s NHK Broadcasting Center, which Sakamoto chose as he believed it to be the space with the best acoustics in Japan. The resulting film in striking black and white has been praised as tender and elegiac, a final celebration of the music of one of the twentieth century’s most beloved musicians, delivered on his own terms.
The screening at Leeds’ Hyde Park Picture House is presented in partnership with Brudenell Piano Sessions, and will be accompanied by pianist and composer Simeon Walker who will provide a short introduction to the film.
