Marcel Theroux travels across Japan in an attempt to understand Wabi Sabi, a theory of Japanese aesthetics in which imperfection and transience are the touchstone of beauty.
+balthiersgirl - He does say early-on that he'd researched it, however all his material was Western-based, hence the reason for his trip to get the information on *Wabi Sabi* from its source. People everywhere are poor at explaining, and this is a relatively difficult abstract concept.
Surely the people bitching about this lovely doc have not watched the whole thing- I think Theroux makes a great effort at finding out about japanese culture and delivers a very thoughtful account of his experience in Japan.
Wabi Sabi can be explained as the story held in the face of the aging. Westerners seek plastic surgery to make the old face young. Wabi Sabi celebrates the old face as a testament to having lived the life that was lived. Old, or imperfect things is beautiful, not something to discard or renew. An old, shovel documents the service that served its user over time. Modern day pop or rock music is manufactured into a final cut after one take through electronic editing and simulated sounds. A traditional studio created song is done over and over front the top until it is intuitively just right. When you examine that song, you will discover the metre, drumming, and timing is off or imperfect but this is the beauty. Life is not perfect. Wabi Sabi is admission to that.
This guy managed to hook me into watching this documentary and yet I don’t know whether he found what he was looking for at the end. Now that’s wabi sabi! 😊
I think the closest concept in English is "studied casualness". wabi comes from adjective wabishii (わびしい), which means humble, unimpressive, short of deserted. sabi comes from adjective sabishii (さびしい), which means lonely, or simple and undecorated in appearance.
It's also akin to the tradition of vanitas painting from the 1700s - the idea of impermanence, the inevitability of death and the inexorable passage of time.
Sabishii also means "sad" so I believe there is an element of soul ache to it all, appreciating the transience of everything with a sense that it is both beautiful and tragic. The more transient something is (child's innocence, falling sakura leaves, a sunset) the more beautiful it is, the more difficult to see if finish so quickly, and the more satisfying to have been there to witness it
Great documentary, I understand why someone could get annoyed by this guy but it's his own journey, and I respect his effort and hard work. How I wish to visit Japan one day and explore it's complexity on my own. 🙏
get a life , really , and an education, because if you think there is anything great about that excrement of a docu or this theroux guy then you need to reevaluate your entire vision of the world around you .
I do think that this document is quite shallow, but I found some things about it quite interesting. And its incredible how you can tell what kind of vision of the world I have, judging from a two sentence comment I made a year ago. Can you suggest me a better documentary or a good book to educate myself further? Thank you.
It just seems similar to the aesthetic we are after when we want handmade things even with their imperfections or when we purposely 'distress' things like furniture to give them more character. Too much decoration can seem gaudy or inappropriate/distracting. Maybe the tea people loved the simple bowls because they wanted the focus on the ceremony and the intamacy of it. There is nothing personal or intimate about a mass produced store bought item. There's no story behind a shiny new thing, but if you have an heriloom, or antique, even if it's not perfect, we love it and there is a story behind it.
Purely innocence clarity outer limits of time appreciation of all gentle creatures of ✌ solace in the Creators will and plans above mans harmony and grace oneness with others without divisions eyes focused on One His above mine
This strikes me as being as effective as walking into the average Wal-Mart in North America and asking random people about impressionism or the pre-Raphaelites...while speaking a foreign language.
I suspect he was playing a bit dumb at the beginning to show his personal growth at the end. May he proceed to understand. May all Humans proceed to understand.
First up embarrass a person in front of camera for failing to explain the concept. ‘Never visited before but I feel I know…’. Arrogance that then to proceeds to undo him.
So nice that some one tries to make out what it is Wabi Sabi Well W S is simply that life and the total ecosystem in which you live anywhere on planet earth is " always a work in Progress" i.e., Wabi Sabi as i understand it. Thanks Good luck Kasturi G
superduper inspiring, thank you very much Gablesha, Marcel Theroux and crew/documentary staff , also to all interviewees resource. I have been very indebted to all of you. Peace!
I think wabi sabi is not just the imperfection. but it's about how you appreciate the things that simple and imperfect. you learn and understand about all things are not stable of your life. sometime, you just have to be quite and feel the things that just happened
Wow, thank you for sharing. Without realizing, by end of it, tears were just rolling down uncomfortably, this is very deep n eye opening for people like us from west. Thank you again.
So you read In Praise of Shadows? It's marvelous! It really makes me travel, imagine, and see beauty. It's an ode to aesthetics. I was deeply excited when I read it for the first time.
5:00 "If wabi sabi is part of their culture, they surely should know what it means." Do fish know what "water" means? Or can westerners explain Plato and Aristotle?
And if he go to Japan he should study japanese just enough to comunicad and learn a little of the culture... it's not that the japanese people doesn't know a out wabi sabi, but is a very complex concept of art and phylosophy... and most of people can't explain even in japanese much worse in other language and more to another person who have no idea what is the profound conscious japanese people are...
Touching, and a little tragic too. At the start, Marcel seems quite sensitive to the wabi sabi aesthetic and honestly moved by it, but has terrible difficulty putting it in its proper context regarding Japanese culture overall. An analogy might be if a Japanese aesthete came to the West seeking the meaning of Romanticism (or Classicism, or any other movement in art). The Westerner in the street would probably recognize the term but not be able to define it adequately, and though our culture is shot through with Romantic ideals and values, it might be difficult to find living examples in everyday Western life.
What I understand and know now is!! Wabi: To be as smple as it can be. (ex,. When you want do an assignment do ot without any additional painting, coloring, and decoration. You just do what is required from you). Sabi: It all about that things don’t change, and their beauty is always there. (ex,. You are always you, your weight, height, and age change does not chabge you. You are always you!)
2021: I Remarried after giving birth to a child from a different but first husband. The second, had married four times prior, but now deceased.This husband, was not a consciously-conscious human-being although an engineer in scientific human engineering. Unknowingly, he did suffer culture shock on our honeymoon. As Time passed, he continued oblivious to our family aesthetic surroundings and stayed in his own subliminal private world. His complex job 24/7 at the same time, was all consuming. He thought it protected secretively to insulate him by his work on Lockheeds’ Mars Project. Our partial life together could not be shared. The lack in his highly trained senses, did not allow the simplicity of the WABI--SABI motif. This was in spite of his child like-innocence and naïveté! For me, It was a tragic contradiction that had no solution.
This helps me with my OCD. I have a big issue with imperfections. I see the beauty in distessed jeans, worn vintage leather. that worn in loved look but doing the damage myself is what I can't overcome if the item was perfect to begin with. it's strange. maybe someone can explain why this is
It isn't imperfection you desire it's the process ,the passage of time ,the part inbetween the beginning and the end.Why did I reply today? Why not 1 year ago? Would my reply have been the same? Will you even read this? You see,the in between.
Can't we all agree that each term, "Wabi' or "sabi" is a complex philosophical term. Each concept has taken hundreds of years to capture in words or images. Just imagine the immense amount of work just to take care of the temple. Now span that across decades of changing history and impermanent permanence that followed as result. We won't understand because the beauty can, in a rude translation, cause us pleasure while blissfully suffering in the meanwhile. Us westerners need to let go of trying to package "zen" or any other view point from the East and focus on our own enigmas at bay. My two cents.
Wabi-sabi is the capacity to be free of desire. The more you desire, more you live in function of it, so, if you are able to feel satisfied without the necessity of have things, so you are able to contemplate the world by the Wabi-sabi perspective, that means, again, pure satisfaction. Thats my opinion xD
We have wabi sabi in Norway. There is the idea of the simplistic, the rustic. We have a word "koselig", that explains the feeling of being at home in a place, of feeling welcomed, warm, intimate. It is also related to this wabi sabiness.
Thank you so much, I need to revisited again this wonderful journey to find Wabi Sabi I may learn something, but I'm not sure if I can find Wabi Sabi, but perhaps it's inside my heart.
Wabi or Sabi is a kind of anti-gorgeous style or tradition where many people warship and pay high attention to the goods whose price are expensive. But a few people finds the beauty in the goods manners, whose outlook is not luxury. The sprite the minor people have is so called Wabi or Sabi.
to me Wabi Sabi is nothing but the buddhistic "it is" ... :D (to value what is (not even what you get just what is) not beeing attached to anything - at all)
This is great. I love it. It's like watching Louis on a school trip when he was 16 and just dabbling in making documentaries. No offence Marcel, you're great. It must be hard to live in your brothers shadow.
I think "wabi Sabi" is a variant or another expression of a certain morality and attitude which is more or less shared throughout the Eastern World. The closest thing in the Western World to that plane of cognition might be what is cherished in the Romantic period of the Western Literature.
I would be grateful to see a documentary that investigates the relationship (or lack thereof) of BBC, quirky documentarian Louis Theroux and the documentarian featured here whose name sort of suggests a familial relationship and other striking similarities. In tribute of the excellence and perfection of wabi sabi, allow me to publicly register my general, imprecise and imperfect critique of the movement. I would be proud if any typos or other mistakes contained in this paragraph (it is becoming very long, I hope) could be immediately brought to my attention, well, most of the mistakes in almost but not quite all instances. I Luve wabi sabi!
Bloody hell watching this from a Japanese perspective , this is so cringe worthy . It actually makes me feel uncomfortable . The things is that i am not Japanese but after 25 years in Japan, being married to a Japanese having Japanese kids , I have such a hard time watching Brits acting like this . I assume it is staged but still , from the very beginning, the way he randomly asks random people question about things completely irrelevant to them is so cringy . He is the archetype of the annoying gaijin . White , of course, acting naturally superior , asking people questions and assuming they have nothing better to do than to answer . You just don't ask a clerk lady who is working to help you with anything not related to her work , 2 seconds after meeting her while she is still trying to check you in . You don't go to random people on the street asking questions about a concept that most Japanese don't even give a bloody damn about . 25 years in Japan and i have NEVER discussed wabi or sabi with Japanese people and if i ever wanted to know about it , i would do some research, because this is what you do in Japan , you look it up yourself, you find people who know about this stuff, you make a polite appointment, you bring a present and then you discuss the topic . Assuming that he can just ask anybody anything and then leave them after they answered or tried to answer is so superior . This is really the typical Gaijin attitude which Japanese absolutely loathe but are way too mpolite to tell it to your face. And then those obnoxious gaijins go back to their homeland and the ones who try to fit in Japanese society are left to handle the fact that they give us all a bad name .This documentary was rude and uncomfortable to watch. I watched it with my better half and mother in law and all they could politely say was " well, it's a good thing, you're not like him" . And a s a Half Brit half French on my mother's side , half Icelandic on my father's i am glad to use my Icelandic passport when travelling in Japan . at least we know how to behave , but fuck , the Brts and French take the cake when it comes to this inherent feeling of superiority , supposing that because they are white in Japan , everything is ok ! He is the opposite of wabi sabi, he is like a big bulldozer trying to go from A to B through a porcelain store , rather than trying to take its time and learn how to not bother anyone . How could he ever understand the concept of Wabi or Sabi , he has urgent questions , he doesn't care whom he asks them too and wants immediate answer . Go back to the UK get to a pub, have a beer and try to understand the concept of trying not act like a total self-righteous, self-important, self-indulgent twat abroad .
haha. I am 6min in. Marcel, that you are in a disconnected hotel room, looking for an answer, while people imperfectly live their lives ... that's wabi-sabi right there. :)
He makes the mistake of looking for the ' real ' Japan in the western stereotype kimona-clad overly polite country dweller , Tokyo is just as much real Japan as that
Eastern spirituality is now over rated. Great spiritual masters from the East moved to Europe or the States. Many are in villages of the French countryside. Taisen Deshimaru lived 15 years in Paris center. He moved there at age 50, to develop the authentic zen of master Dôgen. There have been many masters from different countries, like Aïvanov and currently, a young zen master from Tibet. A huge painter and calligraphic master, but French, Fabienne Verdier, also lives near Paris. And I, the master of masters, am living a led back, serene, fulfilling life, not far :)))
just me but before going to another country and asking about a concept, I would first learn how to pronounce it correctly!! Had to stop after I heard the intro..
