Sad news: Kuroki Kazuo dead

Roland Domenig roland.domenig at univie.ac.at
Wed Apr 12 11:53:21 EDT 2006


It was just reported that director Kuroki Kazuo died today at age 75 due to a cerebral infarction. 
Kuroki was one of the many talents that emerged in the 1950s from Iwanami Production. He made himself a name as director of very innovative PR films and documentaries such as Wagaai no Hokkaido (Hokkaido, My Love; 1957) or Koi no hitsuji ga umi ippai (The seas are full of sheeps in love, 1961) and was one of the founding members of the legendary Iwanami Blue Group (ao no kai). In the mid-1960s he left Iwanami and continued as independent director. His films often encountered troubles, as with the documentary film Aru marason ranna no kiroku (Record of a Marathon Runner, 1964) which reflected the struggle between old and new left within the Association of Documentary Filmmakers, or his feature film Kyuba no koibito (Cuban Lovers, 1969) shot in Cuba. His brilliant first feature film, Tobenai chinmoku (Silence has no Wings, 1966), explored (like many of his documentaries before) new visual and narrative ways and was distributed by the Art Theatre Guild who produced his subseque!
 nt films Nihon no akuryo (Evil Spirits of Japan, 1970), Ryoma ansatsu (The Assassination of Ryoma, 1974), Matsuri no junbi (Preparations for the Festival, 1975) and Genshiryoku senso (Lost Love, 1978). With the first part of his WWII trilogy, Ashita (Tomorrow, 1988), which was followed by Utsukushii natsu no Kirishima (A Boy's Summer in 1945; 2002) and Chichi to kuraseba (The Face of Jizo, 2004), he also gained international recognition. Kuroki was one of the most versatile Japanese directors switching freely between documentary and fiction, gendaigeki and jidaigeki, cinema and TV. Although rarely at the center of attention he was one of the most important directors of his generation and his death is a great loss to Japanese cinema.  

Roland Domenig
Institute of East Asian Studies
Vienna University
         


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