<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">I saw this film the other day. I was looking forward to it, as it follows the candidate for a local election in Kawasaki and I thought I could finally figure out something about Japanese electoral politics. A few things struck me, about its presentation of grass roots level political life and about the film itself and the way it sits inside its genre. <DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><DIV>On the political end of things, you have a very curious situation. The district in question has an open seat, and the LDP couldn't find anyone to run. The reason? This is "entry level" politics, so they force the candidate to front the bills. They are essentially paying their way into party politics. So the candidate the LDP puts up comes from Tokyo. He knows nothing about the local area. Knows no one. He appears to be a stamp otaku that made enough money to rent a small apartment another space for an office, and then all the accouterments of electioneering (neon jackets for the staff, a van with a big loudspeaker, a bullhorn and sign, etc. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-style-span">The guy's out there doing what politicians do: adding to urban Japan's usual cacophony of sound. No one listening. He gets visits from various LDP figures up the hierarchy, most of whom do their best to remind him he's at the bottom rung and he better not forget it. One great scene shows the arrival of Koizumi. He mounts the top of a van with several other senior politicians running in the Kawasaki area. But our little hero is forced to participate from the <I>inside</I> of the bus. They had even intended to take down his banner, but that was a detail that slipped through. When one of his mentors gives him a hard time, he says, "At least my banner was up there." The stuffy old guy responds, "Yeah, we forgot about that." Clearly regretting the miss. </SPAN></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>It's rough to be at the bottom. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>So our hero goes around the blocks screaming on loudspeakers and shaking everyone's hands. The local business people tell him what they expect out of him ("You better fix this street drain!"). Nado nado nado. What is ultimately striking is that his opposition includes a veteran woman politician from another party. She's lived in this district for 30 years and has vast experience with childcare problems, a major issue in the campaign. The main character of the film is an outsider buying his way in, has the seal of approval from the LDP, no kids (everyone gives he and his wife very public grief about that), and doesn't seem to know much about anything. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>But he wins. Fascinating. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-style-span">Now as for the film, what was curious was that it was so utterly lacking in drama. Soda shot the film in a direct cinema style. He doesn't intervene, even with intertitles. This places it in a long tradition of direct cinema films on elections: <I>Primary, </I>TVTV's <I>Four More Years, Feed, </I>etc. etc. etc. Most of these have some sort of dramatic arc to them, the "crisis structure" as it's often called in documentary studies. But this one didn't at all. There is no drama. Now this crisis structure is just that: structure. It's an artificial arrangement that comes out of editing. At the same time, elections by nature are very dramatic. And the stakes are so often so high. But I sensed that the lack of drama, tension, or any kind of suspense actually had to do with the nature of the political process we saw unfold. The candidates did not interact. They didn't really talk about the other candidates, or strategize against them in any way. He had de facto support from the LDP, but they were essentially disinterested in his candidacy. One is really left with the impression that he simply had to spend his hard-earned cash to go through the motions and line up the votes of the community members that always vote for the party. </SPAN></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>If you have a chance, this film's worth a gander.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Markus </DIV><DIV><DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>On Jun 10, 2007, at 9:19 PM, Mark D. Roberts wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">To add to the list of Tokyo film events...</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Kazuhiro Soda's documentary "Campaign" is now showing at the Image Forum in Shibuya, with English subtitles for the 7:30 PM screening.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://www.imageforum.co.jp/theatre/index.html">http://www.imageforum.co.jp/theatre/index.html</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://www.laboratoryx.us/campaignjp/index.html">http://www.laboratoryx.us/campaignjp/index.html</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>