VIFF Review: The Invention of Dr. Nakamats

The Invention of Dr. Nakamats
Vancity Theatre
Saturday, October 9 2010 11:00am

Japanese inventor Yoshiro Nakamatsu has over 3000 patents to his name, invented the floppy disk, is an Ig Nobel prize winner, and now has a revolutionary new design for a bra. Or so he claims. This amusing film follows Nakamatsu in his busy everyday life around the occasion of his 80th birthday.

Nakamatsu is a shameless self promoter and takes it to incredible lengths. While he is in good shape and looks about 60, he claims he will live to the age of 144. He insists that a hotel conference room booked for his birthday party be renamed after him. A road sign at his home office lets you know you are at the intersection of Nakamats Street and Nakamats Drive directly in front of Nakamats Square. He has his own fan club whose members seem to be mostly late middle aged women who are particularly fond of his Love Jet aphrodisiac/perfume invention.

Always willing to play to the media, he projects his image of the great inventor in the line of Thomas Edison, and Leonardo Da Vinci. He even has a poster in his office to prove it. It's hard to tell if he genuinely believes in his press or is in on the joke. The inventions he does demonstrate seem to be straight out of the chindōgu movement by fellow Japanese inventor/artist Kenji Kawakami. What Kawakami invents for absurdist art and social critique, Nakamatsu seems to take seriously. Nakamatsu carries his mobile phone on a wrist strap of his own design in order to keep its deadly radiation away from his heart. He claims that his pedal cab runs on water, but oddly you still need to pedal it. He invents a motor powered by cosmic energy which looks suspiciously like solar cells.

Without any sense of irony or modesty he has become a one man industry. Dr. Nakamats' greatest invention is himself.