REVIEW: Omoiyari: A Song Film by Kishi Bashi [2023]

Rating: NR | Runtime: 75 minutes
Release Date: October 6th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: MTV Documentary Films
Director(s): Kishi Bashi & Justin Taylor Smith

For every sad beginning, there’s a beautiful ending.

Any year a Kishi Bashi album is released is a year that the mix cd I make for friends and families during the holidays will include at least one song from it. “Bright Whites” in 2012. “Philosophize in It! Chemicalize With It!” and “Carry on Phenomenon” in 2014. “Can’t Let Go, Juno” in 2016. And “F Delano” in 2019 off the album that shares a name with this film. I had tickets to finally see him perform in Toronto in April 2020—a dream dashed by COVID, probably forever now.

So, it was an easy call to request a screener of Omoiyari: A Song Film by Kishi Bashi. It’s been four years since Bashi’s (real name Kaoru Ishibashi) last album and the assumption that I would be watching a concert film of sorts was a palatable one due to having missed out on experiencing one in-person. But that’s not what he and co-director Justin Taylor Smith deliver. Yes, we get to see and hear him play some music, but this is very much a journey to reconcile his identity.

What began as a commissioned piece about Executive Order 9066 (Japanese internment during WWII) by Nu Deco Ensemble quickly became an autobiographical history lesson on what it means to be a Person of Color in the United States of America and how little has changed in the decades since that abhorrent act by our government. Bashi sets off from his Georgia home to interview survivors, visit the camp sites, and confront a psychological and cultural conflict of his own stemming from his Japanese-American heritage.

The feature is thus more about contextualizing what happened with what is happening (internment centers for refugees) than the music itself. But there’s still a through-line since what Bashi learns about his home and self is filtered through the melodies. The improvisations he plays at those historical sites by channeling the emotional struggle endured in the 1940s ultimately became tracks on his fourth album a year later. So, this is a process film of sorts too. Omoiyari is a concept album born from a theme of empathy for those innocent men, women, and children.

You also get to meet his equally charismatic parents and his daughter (with some early home video duets from around the time of 151a) while traveling to a few cities (including Japan’s Mie Prefecture, where his father grew up) to catch quick snippets of performances. Add his first time playing at a protest despite starting things off by saying he “isn’t an activist” and you start to see the evolution of self that occurs along this very personal journey across America.

Maybe the whole proves a bit niche in the end, but its surprisingly robust education on EO 9066 and its aftereffects really ensures that its look at Bashi’s life resonates as an example of what it means to be a minority in the US. Watching him point at his high school to say it’s where he learned he was Asian is relatable when I think about my own introduction to realizing I was Arab. There’s a lot to unpack later in life when it comes to assimilation and racism in this country and seeing his real-time acknowledgement of that truth and his gradual radicalization insofar as using his platform to fight for justice inspires.