Pretty much everyone is a fan of something, but for some people, their love for their favorite things gets taken to extremes. This is exactly the case for Akio Sakurai, a Japanese man whose love for Jimmy Page knows no bounds. In Peter Michael Dowd’s latest documentary Mr. Jimmy, Sakurai’s dedication to Led Zeppelin’s iconic guitarist is on full display as we watch him try to make a living emulating Page to a T. But what may first strike viewers as insane devotion eventually turns into a tender exploration of what it means to pay tribute to the things you love.
Sakurai first fell in love with Page when he was a young boy listening to Led Zeppelin in a friend’s bedroom. Since then, he has dedicated his life to learning all he can about Page and his music. Mr. Jimmy details Sakurai’s obsession — because it is an obsession — by showing his commitment to details. To perform in his cover band Mr. Jimmy, Sakurai goes to great lengths to make sure his guitars, amps, costumes, and everything in between are as close to the original models that Page himself once used. Countless hours of work from many different people go into Sakurai’s attempts at recreating various Zeppelin performances, and he studies bootleg versions of the band’s songs so his playing matches the original recordings exactly. His devotion to Page and his work is extreme, but Dowd approaches his subject with a tenderness that depicts Sakurai as eccentric rather than outright insane.
That’s the brilliance of Mr. Jimmy. Other documentaries exploring similar topics of passion, like Seth Gordon’s The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters or David Gelb’s Jiro Dreams of Sushi, each manage to convince us of the wisdom of their subject’s dedication turning them into heroes rather than over-achieving dweebs. Dowd takes a similar approach to Sakurai, treating him with respect and taking his eccentric hobby seriously. But if you come to the film hoping to get insights into what exactly would make someone want to spend their life trying to be someone else, you will be disappointed. For all Mr. Jimmy’s charms — and there are many — the one thing it lacks is an emotional back story that lets you in on the mind of the man behind the man imitating Jimmy Page. Whether this is because Sakurai wasn’t too keen on digging into his past for the camera, we don’t really know, but a deeper look at Sakurai’s psyche would have elevated the film to a level beyond just spectacle.
Perhaps the most interesting part about Mr. Jimmy though is that Sakurai desperately wants to “make the audience believe they’re watching Jimmy Page” when he’s performing, and for the most part, he seems to think he achieves this illusion. This is evident in the air of importance he takes on once he is asked to join the famous Led Zeppelin cover band Led Zepagain. But interesting questions about emulation and race come into play when you take into consideration the fact that while Page is an Englishman, Sakurai is Japanese. No matter how well he imitates Page on stage, visually, he will never be able to master the illusion he so desperately wants to achieve. It would have been interesting to explore this very obvious discrepancy, but Dowd shies away from anything too socially conscious, instead guiding the narrative to a more universal description of paying tribute to those we admire. “That I think is the meaning of tribute,” Sakurai says. “Not showing yourself at all.” By the film’s end though, it’s Sakurai who we remember the most, not the guitarist he’s spent his entire life chasing and for that, we should be truly grateful.
Photo courtesy of Abramorama
The post Mr. Jimmy appeared first on Spectrum Culture.