[rating=6.00]
Watching From All Corners is a frustrating experience. On the one hand, it’s a fascinating look at both our relationship to trash (and the idea that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure), but on the other hand, it’s an overly long, bloated, and too often boring film that occasionally loses itself in the noise. That’s a difficult admission to make, especially considering that when it’s good it’s great, but ultimately it’s just too tedious to fully love.
The film follows Japanese artist Fuyuki Shimazu and his bizarre obsession with cardboard boxes, which he uses to make surprisingly fashionable and effective wallets. He has, in many ways, become the face of the “upcycling” movement, which encourages people to take what might be considered trash and repurpose in ways that elevate it from its original use. Shimazu’s wallets sell for about $100 each and have made him a powerful voice for the benefits of upcycling.
There’s no denying that Shimazu is, in every sense of the word, an artist. What’s clear from watching From All Corners is that he approaches not just his work but his entire life with an artist’s eye, which constantly explores the world in search of new ways to see the familiar. He certainly does that, and his perspective on cardboard is equally poetic and prophetic.
Is that a weird thing to say about cardboard boxes? Absolutely. But Shimazu prefers to see the world in a different light from the rest of us, focusing on the visual aesthetics of cardboard that most of us never think twice about. Shimazu views them as vehicles for design, of imagination, and wonder. To him, even a box’s scratches and dents suggest the existence of a story, one that he seeks to honor by turning those discarded bits of trash into unique wallets.
It’s fascinating to watch him transform mere cardboard into frankly amazing wallets. He approaches his work with the care of an artisan, respecting both the box and the eventual use by his customers. It’s inspiring to see him think creatively and wield his craft, which is meticulous and exacting. It forces us to wonder what we’re missing as we walk through the world. Where we see trash, Shimazu sees potential. Where we choose not to notice, he notices everything.
This is the ultimate purpose of upcycling, in itself a fascinating concept. And the impact of From All Corners might have been great if it had been made as a short instead of a feature. Unfortunately, the entire film is somewhat hard to sit through. So much time is spent watching Shimazu pick up cardboard and the film becomes repetitive.
Added to this is an attempt to flesh out a narrative involving Shimazu searching for the original designer of a box he particularly fell in love with. While charming in a way, this does unfortunately detract from the real narrative of Shimazu himself. It’s interesting to see his interaction, and there’s a heartwarming moment when the artist passes off a wallet he made from the designer’s box, but it does lessen the overall impact.
There’s a great short film somewhere in the 90 minutes of From All Corners that gets muddled in the attempts to produce a feature. I admire the ambition of the film, but some more intense editing would have allowed the film’s themes to be more concise and apparent. A more vérité approach, less muddled with intrusive voice over and rambling feel, would have made this a fantastic film. Instead it’s simply okay, which feels disappointing in the face of what might have been.
