Nureki Chimuo Archive

Despite all my big talk and pretentious writing leading up to the shoot, the truth is that even with this “Talking Theater,” Nakahara Rutsu, producer of Tomoshibi and Director of the Sex Industry Museum, occasionally takes the helm, gently guiding my every step and subtly steering me in the right direction.

If she didn’t do that, I, being capricious, frivolous, and restless, would veer off course the moment I let my guard down and, before I knew it, find myself plunged into a completely different direction.

Then, my original objective would become blurred. It’s no good for the theme to become blurred. She’s the first to read the scripts for this “Talking Theater” series, and she occasionally offers her insights.

“...You should reread this part. Isn’t this different from the view of SM, the ‘pleasure of bondage’ that Nureki Sensei always advocates? If you release this as is, people will misunderstand it as being at odds with his usual principles and arguments.”

Although there are slight differences in the nuances of her expression, she generally says something like this.

“Oh? Where exactly?” I’d say, and when I reread the passage she pointed out, sure enough, Director Nakahara was right.

I could give specific examples, but that would take too long, so I won’t do that here. However, there are many times when I have no choice but to follow her advice.

The problem is, she’s smarter than me, more logical, and her points are absolutely correct. Clearly, I’m the one who’s wrong.

I have my own stubborn streak, and I won’t rewrite my own text unless I’m convinced, but since she’s right, there’s nothing I can do about it.

Another problem is that, on top of being smarter than me, she has an extremely honest personality.

She’s the type who’s completely straightforward and honest.

(I’ve never met anyone this honest before.)

Whenever I felt frustrated by her perfectly reasonable arguments and tried to forcefully argue back, she would instantly raise her delicate eyebrows, her face contorting into a terrifying, hateful expression like that of a Hannya, and she would continue to point out my mistakes with sharp precision.

(A Hannya is a demoness with a terrifying face, but the term also refers to someone possessing sharp wisdom capable of discerning the truth.)

“Look, just look. Sensei wrote this before, ‘A still photograph that utters no words actually speaks volumes.’ I agree with this way of thinking…”

Since that’s exactly right, I have no choice but to concede defeat.

As someone more than twice her age, simply giving in felt frustrating, so right in front of her, I wrote in large letters on a notepad, “Acting on impulse” and flaunted it in her face just to annoy her.

“Acting on impulse” means “acting exactly as one feels, without pretense or artifice.”

I intended it as a bit of a sarcastic payback, but she just gave me a nonchalant “hmm” and didn’t bat an eye.

But in the end, I revised the manuscript to my satisfaction, and as a result, my mistakes were corrected. I’m truly grateful for that.

To explain this a little further, here’s what happened.

Having worked on numerous video shoots for a very long time, I had inadvertently come to believe, and consequently wrote, that video footage, rather than still photography, could more accurately capture the subtle changes in the subject’s (that is, the bound and tormented model’s) facial expressions and body movements.

In still photography, the character’s movements are frozen, and naturally, their voices and dialogue cannot be heard.

Since their voices and dialogue cannot be heard, I wrote something along the lines of how it is difficult to express the subtle psychological interplay between the characters.

Essentially, the text could be interpreted as implying that video, with its sound, has an advantage.

Producer Rutsu’s keen eye did not overlook that single line of text I had written.

“What are you saying? Are you saying that still photographs cannot express a person’s inner emotions? Isn’t that different from what you always say?”

I had written out the lines of the loan shark who appears in this photo book at great length in my shooting notes.

It seemed impossible to accurately convey the content of those long lines I had written within the confines of a still photograph, which is a frozen image.

So I ended up thinking that when the story gets complicated, video is better suited for explaining the relationships and positions of the characters.

Even at my age, I still act as recklessly and naively as ever.

Oh, how embarrassing.

Producer Rutsu’s sharp eyes were instantly drawn to that one careless line I’d written, and her pointed criticism flew straight at me, piercing my heart.

Gah, ow!

As always, what came out of her mouth was pure common sense, and I couldn’t argue a single word. All I could do was groan.

So, I rewrote it right away. I wrote what I truly felt.

(That became “Talking Theater” number 161.)

Producer Rutsu nodded and said, “Yeah, this is good. Let’s go with this.”

Ah, that was scary!

There was one more thing that Producer Rutsu pointed out to me this time. I’ll write this down here as part of my own “shooting notes.”

It’s that my approach to filming tends to lean more toward creating something to please enthusiasts rather than creating a work for myself.

In other words, whenever I tie up a woman, my instinct is always to seek the empathy of fellow enthusiasts.

As a result, I end up being dominated by the desire to produce a product rather than the mindset of creating a work of art.

Given that 99.9% of the women I’ve tied up in the past were professional models, meaning I tied them up for the purpose of product creation, this is perhaps only natural.

For this upcoming Tomoshibi shoot, I must set aside this instinct to create products.

It would be truly disastrous if, out of past habit, my heart were to inadvertently lean toward merchandise production. This is one thing I absolutely must avoid.

This shoot must be entirely free from product creation and must remain strictly in line with my personal taste from start to finish.

If it starts to smell like a product, it will lose all value.

I really need to think this through more carefully, but as I’ve said many times before, I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, so I can’t seem to get my thoughts to go very deep.

It’s simply that I’ve kept at this kind of work for a long time, relying on experience, which I’ve repeated over and over without growing tired of it, and on my gut feeling.

When you do the same thing for over fifty years, a kind of sediment inevitably builds up.

I wonder if I’ll be able to scrape that sediment away during this shoot.

Well then, starting tonight, I’ll take out the ropes I’ll use to bind Hiromi Saotome in seven days and give them a thorough cleaning.