[KineJapan] 4/6—10 From YIDFF—A2

Tue Feb 1 15:14:57 EST 2022

Hi everyone,

I hope it didn't escape your notice that dafilms.com is streaming 10 key
Japanese documentaries that launched from Yamagata International
Documentary Film Festival.

https://asia.dafilms.com/spotlight-on/1129-yamagata2021

The festival asked me to write up some blog posts about both the films
vis-a-vis the festival. I contributed six short essays, and since they were
only distributed by Facebook, I thought I'd post them here as well.

Cheers,

Markus

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A2

On March 20, 1995, as preparations for that October’s Yamagata
International Documentary Film Festival were picking up, Japan was rocked
by domestic terrorism. Five members of the Aum Shinrikyo religious cult
broke bags of sarin in Tokyo subway trains. The stations under attack were
just kilometers away from the Yamagata Tokyo office in Kagurazaka and in
every direction. Fourteen people died, over 5,000 victims went to
hospitals, and things got strange fast. I vividly recall the way daily life
transformed that spring and summer. Commuting to and from the festival
office, one accumulated all sorts of trash in one’s pocket because all the
trashcans in Tokyo had been taped shut. There was a general sense of fear,
particularly because of the hyperbolic way the media portrayed both the
manhunt and the cult itself.

It was all incredibly dramatic and I wondered if any intrepid filmmakers
were pursuing the story. My question was answered three years later with
Mori Tatsuya’s *A *(1998), which he followed up in 2001 with *A2*. Mori’s
films are a variation of direct cinema. He follows the media frenzy around
the cult with his camcorder, occasionally inserting himself into the scenes
with questions. Once in a while, he offers his perspective on things. The
reception of the films, particularly the first one, was a real surprise.
Somehow, Mori had insinuated himself into the good graces of the Aum
leadership and he offered Japanese audiences a glimpse at the inside
workings of the organization under police and media siege. The films raise
a wide array of questions about both the workings and beliefs of the cult
and the patently unethical behavior of both the authorities and the media.
>From this starting point, Mori built a career around questions of
documentary and journalistic ethics.

Incredibly, I’ve heard Mori Tatsuya downplay his work as a documentary
filmmaker. True, the man has written upwards of 40 books, and is a regular
commentator on television any time journalistic ethics come to the fore.
However, his contributions to Japanese documentary are undeniable, and
*A2* (2001)
is as good a starting point as any for approaching his oeuvre.

Mori went to Rikkyo University, where he connected with a cohort of
film-crazy students that included Kurosawa Kiyoshi. He even had an acting
role in a few of Kurosawa’s first films. Around the same time, he pursued a
career in television journalism; however, he continually found the
strictures of mainstream tv not only unbearably tight, but at times sketchy
to boot.

This came to a head during the Aum Shinrikyo subway attack. In the year
after the attack Mori had a line on Aum’s media spokesperson, Araki
Hiroshi, and was able to conduct extensive interviews on tape. He wanted to
use these as the basis for some television documentary, but the producers
only wanted to extract his interviews and embed them in the conventional,
hyperbolic coverage of the day. Frustrated, he teamed up with producer
Yasuoka Takahara, who started his career as assistant director to Hara
Kazuo on *The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On *(*Yuki yukite shingun, *1987),
and they edited the film into a feature length documentary entitled, simply
*A*.

It was a hard time to distribute independent documentaries. The postwar
network of independent screening venues and groups was transforming into a
nationwide collection of independently run theaters, or “mini-theaters.”
They were few and far between, and they weren’t showing much non-fiction.

There was a technical obstacle as well. This was still the transition era
between film and video. Here is a telling example: festival regular Jon
Jost was just turning to—and proselytizing—digital capture and submitted
his fully digital *London Brief* (1999) to Yamagata around the same time
Mori completed *A*. The festival accepted the film to the competition…and
told him to transfer it to film, *as per the regulations.* Jost said he
didn’t have the $30,000 that would take, but the festival obstinately
refused to budge (the film was finally shown out of competition and won an
award). This is one reason *A *was shown out of competition at the 1997
YIDFF.

Mori and Yasuoka were up against this deeply held prejudice against video.
*A* and *A2* are rough and ready. They are almost exclusively
hand-held—poorly—with the occasional wind blowing out the soundtrack.
Lighting is often muddy. Resolution is so low it looks somewhat fuzzy from
start to finish. As a result, A has been seen more in the intervening years
than its original run. A2 fared better in 2001. Yamagata had broken down by
then and started accepting video submissions without the expectation of a
film transfer. The film was selected for the international competition and
picked up two awards that October.

The films were electrifying for those who took them on the terms of the new
technology and its protean conventions. Mori freely traverses the border
between the inner Aum sanctum and the crazy media ecosystem outside. This
is literalized over and over in the films during press conferences. While
the media mob waits in their assigned seats—cameras lined up and pens at
the ready—Mori’s camera effortlessly moves to adjacent spaces where the Aum
leadership prepares to meet the press. We then see how television
repackages that raw reality and inevitably spins it in ways unfair to the
cult. At the same time, while Mori portrays the Aum members
sympathetically, he hardly lets them off the hook. He masterfully walks
these lines and in an ethnically righteous manner.

To this, Mori adds regular Japanese to the mix in *A2.* The film careens
between encounters between Aum and three groups: the police, rowdy
right-wing nationalists, and Japanese citizens living in the communities
Aum has set up shop in. *A2* picks up around the beginning of the new
century and captures a turning point in the story. Public relations head
Joyu Fumihiro is let out of prison and replaces Asahara Shoko’s sons as the
leader. The group changes its name to Aleph, and announces doctrinal
changes. They apologize and create a large fund to compensate victims. At
the same time, the government passes an anti-Aum law that allows the
authorities extraordinary surveillance power. And at Aum’s facilities
around the country, community members organize 24-hour surveillance posts
and subject cult members to searches.

Mori’s film tracks all these developments from inside the compounds and
offices. The hysteria and discrimination members are subjected to is
striking, especially thanks to the director’s humanizing gaze. He remains
critical and repeatedly challenges his subjects. But he’s also respectful
and friendly. Likewise, as the citizen surveillance teams interact with
cult members over time, they realize how unfair the global demonization has
been and begin to establish friendships. That leaves the ultra-right
activists, the police and the media, none of whom shows any capacity to
learn or change.

Since the turn of the century, Mori went on to write dozens of books on the
complex themes raised by A and A2. He addresses human rights, the legal
foundations and cultural challenges of freedom of religion and speech, and
the ethical quandaries of journalistic practice. Several of his books
powerfully explore the theoretical dimensions of documentary and truth
claims. These are themes he has returned to in his most recent must-see
documentaries *FAKE* (2016) and *i-Documentary of the Journalist* (2019).
To understand what he aspires to in these films, one ideally approaches
them through Mori’s own starting point, the epicenter of the media
spectacle captured in *A2*.
---

*Markus Nornes*
*Professor of Asian Cinema*
*Interim Chair, Dept. of Asian Languages and Culture*

Department of Film, Television and Media, Department of Asian Languages and
Cultures, Penny Stamps School of Art & Design

*Homepage: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nornes/
<http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nornes/>*
*Department of Film, Television and Media*
*6348 North Quad*
*105 S. State Street**Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285*
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