Muyan
sequence
At the beginning of the interview, Hara explained that the name of his film company, "Rush", came from Koji Tsuji's poetry collection "The End of The Rush": his partner and partner, Sachiko Kobayashi, liked the poet. The end of the sprint?! Admittedly, if sprinting only makes me a little curious, then the title and phrase "The End of Sprinting" really fascinates me. Tomoko Kobayashi later wrote: "I like the feeling of speeding away. ... It's no joke, I want to shoot a movie while running, gasping for breath and shooting a film while sweating. But when you run, the scenery will collapse, and you can't hear what others say. I continued to run selflessly, and when I reacted, I found that something seemed to have been born. What is born is a movie, and it is also a baby. (Excerpt from 《タブーこそを撃て!) Hara Ichigo と行する映画, Translated by Ma Ran)"
Also born is the film of Hara Kazuo. It is even appropriate to sum up all his films in terms of "sprinting" and "ending". The rush is of time, a sense of urgency in a hurry, a sense of anger and a feeling that time is not waiting for me; the end is the theme of the rush, or the inevitable result: death and illusion, exhaustion and great illusion. But if it is the end, then what is the point of sprinting? Sprinting may be the only way to fight death and end with the flesh, and it's an indisputable matter of faith—as in movies, if we believe that movies are one way to combat forgetting.
Since 1972's "Goodbye CP", Hara's films have been full of "personal" colors: emotional impulses suppress rational analysis— even as a "documentary"; the camera unscrupulously "invades" into the life of the subject, wrestling with it and living together, it is both an observer and a participant and even sometimes an intruder, and it is no longer a gentle camera-stylo (caméra-stylo), wrapped in a strong desire to tell. It's a weapon (camér-a-rme). It also began to search for its own "prey": the unforgettable ex-wife ("Absolute Privacy Sex Song 1974"), the "Divine Army Equal Soldier" who attacked the Emperor with a slingshot ("Forward, Divine Army!"). Novelists who go to the "end" but use fiction to immortalize ("Full Body Novelist") – then individual close-ups become group portraits, and the film also changes from portraying the "strong" to tracking the "weak" to become stronger, class actions ("Japan National vs Sennan Asbestos Village", "Minamata Mandala") or group elections ("Reiwa Kazumoku"). What remains unchanged is that, as Hara said, "film is about portraying people's feelings" and "the basic purpose of documentaries is to show the feelings that the subject has."
Minamata disease may be the earliest memory of a generation of Chinese about what a man-made industrial disaster is and what is terrible about it, but Minamata Mandala is a reminder that the memories in the minds of some people may be the reality that another part of the people are still facing. In addition to mirroring each other, the three parts of the film are also like a mandala, which is the core of the film, that is, human feelings: from the litigation in the first part - technology to the second part of life - reality to the third part of love - sexual spirit. It is also from this that the film transcends "recording", and we also gain strength from "fiction", as Hara Kazuo said.
The original man in the interview is also a "sprinting" style, without transition or warm-up to gush into the subject and try to reach the core, he thinks clearly and honestly – including confessing his cowardice and dissatisfaction. Ended by Tomoko Kobayashi: "Even so, I plan to run without distraction. Before I make a deep reflection on the bound flesh, even if I fall, I want to run, and it is not a problem whether I am ugly or not."
The interview was completed by Zoom on August 31, 2020, and special thanks need to be given to Nagoya University's ma ran teacher for his full assistance and proofreading, as well as Pan Qin's on-site translation and Wen Hao's listening and collation.
Originally a man.
Thank you director for the interview, and my first question is why your studio is called "Sprint Production."
Hara Kazuo: The first film our company produced was 1972's Goodbye CP (さようなら CP, cp is short for Cerebral palsy, or cerebral palsy. ）。 When we finished this film, the first thing we thought about was what to call this production "Production". My partner and companion at the time, Samuko Kobayashi, was a lover of modern Japanese poetry, and her favorite poet of the 1970s had a collection of poems titled "The End of The Rush" (快行の終り). It was also because of her fascination with this collection of poems that she chose the word "rushing" as the name of our production company.
Stills from "Goodbye CP".
By what coincidence did the director shoot his first work, "Goodbye CP"? Because as far as I know, the director doesn't seem to have studied film.
Hara: Before making a movie, I actually studied photography to become a news (reporting) photographer. The first subject I chose in school was "Children with Disabilities", which I submitted for the school at that time; after submitting it, I received praise from the school, and although the completion of the project itself was enough, I had a voice in my heart telling myself that this matter was not over. So I dropped out of school and started shooting on my own, and the subjects of the photos gradually expanded from the original "disabled children" to the problems of "disabled adults", "disabled workers", "disabled people who can't work", and "how disabled people fight the government". Because people with disabilities are so widespread, I also travel around Japan looking for them, meeting them, and photographing and learning in the process.
During the filming process, I became a staff member at a school for the care of children with physical disabilities and began shooting at children in my class. The set of photographs was later chosen by an institution known as the "Dragon Gate for Newcomer Photographers" to hold my first solo exhibition at a gallery in Ginza, Tokyo. My later partner, Kobayashi, also went to the exhibition and discussed the photos with me. We also met as an opportunity. At that time, the reason why Kobayashi was on the capital was actually to make a movie. After the discussion, we decided to make a documentary together, the original theme of cerebral palsy, and thus the "Goodbye CP" that the two of us later produced together.
There are very similar themes between Goodbye CP and your latest work, Minamata Mandala (2020), and the same is true in shooting methods, such as when you track the life of your subject, you will go deep into the very private side of his/her life, even "deliberately". For example, in "Goodbye CP", you will ask about the life of the subject, including sexual life experiences, and at the beginning of the third part of "Minamata Mandala", it is also a woman who tells her love "adventure" story. Regardless of whether the part that crosses the line of privacy should be filmed and shown, I think the part that presents privacy in these two works is the most moving. In particular, in Minamata Mandala, the part of the woman who writes the poem tells her life experience takes the whole documentary to another level. I wondered if you would have deliberately designed interviews like this to ask them these intimate questions when photographing these characters?
Hara Kazuo: The root cause of Minamata disease is the invasion of methyl mercury on the human body. That is to say, the methyl mercury contained in the toxic waste liquid produced by the factory is absorbed by the fish in the sea after being discharged into the ocean, and then passed on to the humans who eat these fish. Methyl mercury encroaches on and damages the motor nerves of the human brain, leading to the symptoms of Minamata disease. Pregnant women, on the other hand, pass on methyl mercury to their babies through childbirth, the so-called "fetal Minamata patients." Until the cause of a patient with minamata is fully identified, they are often misdiagnosed as cerebral palsy because of similarity in characterization (e.g., uncontrollable limb movements in patients). The main difference between the two is that Minamata disease is a disability caused by the invasion of the brain by toxic substances, and the reasons are very clear. The symptoms of CP are not caused by ingestion of poison, but by the patient at birth, because of some condition that does not know the cause in detail.
We were working on "Goodbye CP" at the time of the Minamata epidemic. Adults with severe minamata disease die in a very short time, but people with fetal minamata disease carry this symptom ever after. So the question we ask in Goodbye CP about people with cerebral palsy — what we call the "disability problem" (i.e., the "disability problem") — also includes the symptoms of people with minamata in their adulthood and their condition as a disabled person. Our questions about patients with fetal Minamata disease in Minamata Mandala also refer to "Goodbye CP" to a large extent.
Stills from Minamata Mandala.
One of the more important problems is that Minamata disease is a clear perpetrator and a victim, and the company called CHISSO discharges toxic waste liquid into the ocean and then causes contaminated fish to be eaten by people, which is absolutely the cause. But the disabilities of the cerebral palsy patients we photographed were more likely to be traumatized by brains at birth for unknown reasons... A certain percentage of babies are born with this condition. In other words, cerebral palsy is not necessarily treated as a "victimized" condition. At that time, people with disabilities in Japanese society were discriminated against because of their physical disabilities. In response to this discriminated situation, patients with cerebral palsy have asked whether cerebral palsy is an unattainable disease? "There have been a series of discussions for the community. Of course, many people will reply, "It is indeed a disease that cannot be obtained", but there are also a small number of people who feel that "if there is no problem", although they have disabilities, their value as human beings has not changed. If society does not think that cerebral palsy is a congenital, probabilistically unavoidable disease, and therefore should not be treated differently, the problem of these CP patients cannot be solved. Similar thinking emerged in the 70s. This is also the essential difference between what I think of as cerebral palsy and Minamata disease.
Regarding the question of privacy, from a social point of view, although there is a kind of understanding that asking questions beyond this scope (privacy) will make people feel ashamed and feel bad, for people who create documentaries, turning the camera to the so-called "privacy" of individuals when making films is considered to be a very basic operation. In this sense, whether it is cerebral palsy, Minamata disease, or other problems, it is common to focus the lens on "privacy", and I don't think this is a special practice.
Forward, Divine Army! stills.
In his early years, the director also worked on feature films as a camera assistant or assistant supervisor, such as the films of Kumai Ki and Masahira Imamura, the latter of whom was also a producer in Forward, Shinjun (ゆききて, Kamei, 1987). I would like to ask the director to talk about the relationship with director Shohei Imamura and your knowledge or understanding of him. Because in a way I think there is a heritage/similarity between the work of director Hara and the films of Shohei Imamura—for example, from the perspective of "anger" or rebellion. Or Imamura Shohei's "In Pursuit of the Unreturned Soldier" (未帰還還兵を追って, 1971-1975) "The Homecoming Of Unable to Loosen" (Unable to Loosen The Hometown) (Unable to Loosen The Hometown) and even "Nanyang Sister" (からゆきさん, 1975) all intersect or similar to the creations of the original male director.
Kazuo Hara: I have not been an assistant director for director Imamura. But I used to be a famous photographer – and the photography assistant to Imabari's long-term partner, Makoto Himeda. Also as An assistant to Himeda, I have participated in the scenes of director Imamura, and participated in the works "Revenge in Me" (復讐するは我にあり, 1979) and "Troubled World Floating" (ええじゃないか, 1981). In addition, I have also worked as a assistant director for director Kiriro Urayama, who is equivalent to the brother of director Imamura, so I think [Imamura has an indirect influence on me] too. I like the film world portrayed by director Imamura, and I have repeatedly read the theory of director Imamura's works and continued to learn. Director Imamura once said, "Cinema is about portraying people." Although I like this sentence, but this description is also too abstract, I put the word "feelings" in it to supplement (meaning), expressed: "Film (documentary) is to portray people's feelings." When I was in class myself, I used the latter sentence to inspire students. If we talk about the key word in Imamura's works, in a word, it lies in the word "desire." There are two works in Imamura's works that are titled "Desire", one is "Infinite Desire" (果てしなき欲, 1958) and the other is "Desire of the Gods" (神々の深き Desire, 1968).
Does the director agree that "illness and death" is a common theme in his own creations? If so, I would like to ask the director why he has always been interested in this subject?
Hara: Actually, the topic I've always been most interested in is not "disease". I was born in a mining area, and shortly after I was born, the mine went bankrupt and went bankrupt, leaving the inhabitants living in a very poor state. Therefore, it can also be said that I am a child who grew up in poverty. Poor children always have a "complex" for themselves, and when they grow up and enter society, they always have a vision for the rise of social status, especially the recognition of others. Although people with this "complex" have various personalities, my personality still contains a weak side... I've always thought of myself that way. So it wasn't the strength in my personality that stimulated my desires, but the weaknesses that forced me to become stronger to gain the approval of others. In my opinion, the desire to become stronger and the "complex" are actually two sides of the same coin.
When I grew up and became a documentary filmmaker, when it comes to the protagonists of the film, the objects of my work so far are also people who are both complex and strongly want to gain social recognition. It may be a bit off-topic here, but whatever the society is, it is controlled by a small number of powerful people, and the large number of ordinary people is the oppressed side. That is to say, those of us who are on the side of oppression, with our own complexes, while thinking that "we are not strong enough", and at the same time enter the society and want to be recognized. For me, the common people who are fighting against great power are very powerful objects. So photographing these powerful people also became a kind of self-education for the weak me, and that's how I thought and shot. Although my cameras are dealing with "powerful" people, they are not simply strong personalities, they are dealing with people with power and values that dominate society, and this dominant value has always bound people's consciousness and cannot make them feel free. And the protagonist of my work is rebelling against that value... Like I said earlier, they all have some kind of complex, they all feel that they have weak parts and want to be strong because of it. I think I should be photographing a group of people like this.
Stills from Absolute Privacy Sex Song 1974.
Fighting because of strength, strong because of resistance?
Kazuo Hara: I think "Forward, Divine Army!" The protagonist of "Kenzo Okuzaki" is probably the most powerful person in the works I have filmed, and I should be able to feel it when I watch the movie, but he also has a huge complex. The protagonist of "Goodbye CP" also has a complex and fights against social discrimination. For the protagonist of AbsoluteLy Private Sex Song 1974 (Extremely Private Love Song 1974, 1974), the idea of her mother's generation about the existence of "women" is that they must marry and obey the social values of their husbands; the protagonist thinks that these values of the previous generation are wrong, so she becomes a woman who wants to overthrow it and rebel against it. All in all, the protagonists in my films are people who are fighting.
Is it out of the same logic that politics gradually becomes a crucial element in your later films—such as administrative incidental civil lawsuits against the government, or a group of people uniting to form a community to fight? You say you're interested in weak people banding together against power, but is it inevitable that politics will get involved in the issues you're dealing with? Because I don't think it's particularly political in your earlier films.
Hara Kazuo: As I said before, my first three works: "Goodbye CP", "Absolute Privacy Sex Love Song 1974", and then "Forward, God Army!" The protagonist background is probably what you observe. Although it has certain commonalities with the later "Full Body Novelist" (Full Body Novelist, 1994), the biggest reason is that the protagonist is a novelist. This shift in his identity as a creator has also led to some changes in the content of my work. After this work, life in Japanese society became more and more difficult, the sense of oppression became stronger, and people like Kenzo Okosaki who fought explicitly against power became rare in society—even completely disappeared. I think it may be because the intensification of oppression has worn away the spirit of resistance. So even if I wanted to continue shooting at the protesters, it was difficult to do so. This caused my creation to hit a bottleneck for nearly 20 years. Until "Japan Country vs Izuminan Asbestos Village" (ニッポン国泉南石綿村, 2016), the protagonists of this work are not the powerful people of the past, they are ordinary people living in ordinary life, ordinary villagers who produce asbestos in small private enterprises. Asbestos was widely used in post-war society as a cheap, mass-produced product, and made a great contribution to the prosperity of Japanese society at that time. But at the same time, these producers inhaled toxic powders produced by asbestos for a long time and in large quantities, and generally suffered from fatal lung disease. After many people died as a result, the people of Sennan finally realized the seriousness of the problem and joined forces to appeal. Under the Japanese system, companies must be recognized by the state for whatever products they want to produce, so it can also be said that the state must take responsibility. All in all, I would like to say that in the problem of asbestos villages, the victims are also completely ordinary "people", and these people have died for the sake of the abundance of Japanese society as a whole.
The protagonist I like is, of course, a person like Kenzo Okuzaki who has the personal will to "fight with the state" and fights, so when such a powerful character disappeared, I was very distressed. After much thought, it occurred to me that Kenzo Okosaki was not the one who had fought against the state so strongly from the beginning. Before he grows into a strong man, there must also be a stage of ordinary life as a commoner. The people of Quannan Asbestos Village may be experiencing such a stage of growth, and perhaps one day they will become powerful protesters. As a result, my subjects have changed from "strong people" like Kenzo Okosaki to "ordinary people before becoming strong", which in a sense can also be said to be a kind of "retreat" of my works. But this (truth) made me spend 20 years thinking about it! [Laughs]
Stills from "Japan Country vs Izumi-minami Asbestos Village".
The subjects are also changed from individuals to groups.
Kazuo Hara: The latest works "Minamata Mandala" and "Japan National vs Izumi-nan Asbestos Village" were actually filmed in the same period, the latter took eight years to shoot, plus the editing of two years is a total of ten years; and "Minamata Mandala", which began earlier than "Japan Country vs Sennan Asbestos Village", took fifteen years to shoot, and the editing took three years, but there was an overlap between the two, so it took a total of sixteen years to complete. Because the production period of these two works roughly coincides, their themes and subjects have a lot in common, that is, they are related to the so-called common people, that is, "living people".
But there are differences: the villagers of Sennan in Japan vs. Sennan Asbestos Village have been appealing and adjudicating for eight years, and I have been interacting with them in the process. Minamata Mandala is more complicated because Minamata disease, as a problem with a history of more than 60 years, has not been faced and essentially solved by the government. In the history of Minamata disease, there have been many lawsuits, large and small, of which there have been winning lawsuits and losing cases. Those who win a lawsuit are generally compensated financially, so a distinction is also made between those who have been compensated and those who have not been compensated. The person who has not received compensation will have a feeling of envy and even envy towards the person who has been compensated. Political parties and political groups with different ideological bases have been mixed up in Minamata's lawsuits, making interpersonal relationships more complicated. Differences in thinking, differences in whether or not to receive reparations, and differences in the demands of each person in the struggle against the government... If you go to the scene, you can understand that these factors collide and intertwine with each other, making a heavy atmosphere of stagnation between the Minamata disease fighting groups. Those responsible for this, such as business and government, have resorted to social and political institutional conveniences, tacitly accepted by more people and have long been free. That is to say, it is the so-called people, the living people, who can free up power and make it stable. It is not that some people will directly face the power to express "I forgive you", but that [they are in] a huge system, do not do struggle, the pursuit of justice, but blindly want to satisfy their selfish desires, just want to achieve their own personal happiness, such ideas and practices can be said to be a certain connivance of power. So when I was making Minamata Mandala, I paid attention to the private areas of people's lives, and in private lives, everyone paid attention to the small scope of life, and forgot about the problems that should have been solved only by fighting the government or people with great power, which is actually my criticism of the people in "Minamata Mandala". The existence of this critique subtly distinguishes between "Japan National vs Sennan Asbestos Village" and "Minamata Mandala".
Just now you said that the first three works focus on the strong as an individual, but the next work I understand is about how a group of people unite to become strong. The change from individual to group perspective, as well as the exploration of the problems that arise in the transition from the weak to the strong, is an evolution of your work. This is an necessity and necessity.
Hara: As you said, my first three works are really more focused on the individual. What I have tried is to reflect the face of the struggle of the entire common people through the portrayal of the individual. But when it came to "Japan National vs Izumi-minami Asbestos Village" and "Minamata Mandala", I turned to depicting the "group portraits" of the common people. I think that the charm, strengths and weaknesses of the common people group cannot be reflected by one or two characters, so the portrayal of group portraits has become the focus of these two works.
Stills from Full Body Novelist.
I want to go back to the beginning of my creative career as a director again. I'm curious that Goodbye CP was your student work, while the second, Absolutely Private Sex Song 1974, was somehow a private video recording, and then later there was "Forward, Divine Army!" and documentaries like "Full Body Novelist". I would like to ask you when did you really choose film as your way of expression? Because "Goodbye CP" and "Absolutely Private Sex Song 1974" are more or less related to your personal life experience. What I'm wondering is is is there a defining moment that makes film your profession and expression?
Kazuo Hara: (Laughs) Although I felt that from the very beginning I was sure that film would be my way of expressing itself, it was not until I consciously studied and established my own documentary theory until the work "Full Body Novelist". Its protagonist, Mr. Mitsuharu Inoue, taught me a truth: documentaries and fictional films have the same roots. Of course, I didn't shoot the previous films without knowing anything, but in general, I consciously learned and borrowed from the way documentaries are made under the existing system. Before shooting Goodbye CP, although I had taken many photos around this group, it was not the same as actually taking the camera to the home of the protagonist, Mr. Yokota, to shoot his private life. The camera intervenes as a violent device in his (home's) private space. Breaking into the private life of the "other" (the so-called "other") in front of the camera and making a film is my summary of my first work.
The second work, Absolute Privacy Erotic Love Song 1974, embraces the question of "what is the matter of violently interfering in the privacy of others with a camera?" Such a question was made of creation. I turned the problem to myself in this work to see what would happen if I were to face the camera, to expose my privacy, my personal parts to the camera, which is the complete opposite of Goodbye CP.
To some extent, "Absolute Privacy Of Sex Songs 1974" also takes this exploration to the extreme, and "private films" in the absolute sense have almost no room for further development, if not constantly copied and repeated.
Kazuo Hara: From my second work to the third part, "Forward, Divine Army!" There is a ten-year gap between them. I've also thought a lot about it during this decade. The protagonist, Kenzo Okuzaki, is an individual with great energy, "When such a powerful individual faces a larger country, what will become of his individual energy?" "It became my point of interest in this work. So what I was thinking about when I created these three works was actually different. That's it, every work I have new points of interest that I want to explore, and this is clear every time I make a film.
The Full Body Novelist, located in the middle of your creative sequence, is an interesting work. You as a documentary filmmaker go about the process of a writer who constantly fictions himself and constantly "lies". Can the process of filming a person's constant fiction or deconstruction of oneself be seen as your own cinematic view?
Hara Kazuo: In the filming of "Forward, Divine Army!" After the three works so far, as a filmmaker, I really began to ask myself, "What is a documentary?" "This film theory is a problem. When I was shooting "Full Body Novelist", my desire was very strong, that is, I wanted to establish my own documentary theory through this work. The protagonist of Full Body Novelist is a man suffering from cancer. A characteristic of this pathology of cancer is that if it does not spread and metastasize within a few years, it may be cured, and if it spreads and metastasizes within a few years, people will die. The protagonist of this story, Mr. Mitsuharu Inoue, after confirming that he had cancer, underwent surgery and felt that he would not die, and after the film began, the cancer had actually spread and metastasized many times, but despite this, he was still convinced that he would not die, and constantly proved to us that he would still live: in the film, he constantly showed us the fact that he would not die and would live no matter what. These situations, as delusions or his imagination of "immortality", became the motivation for him to continue to live in reality. The idea of gaining the strength to live every day by inventing this image that I will not die means a lot to me.
Not only that, but Mr. Inoue also mixed his actual life, which was about his parents and other family members, into his own fictional story, which made me feel very interesting. I wonder what exactly made him make such a fictional life story move. Of course, in reality, there are many people who face themselves truthfully, and there are also many people like Mr. Inoue who gain life strength by "lying" or imagining and changing their lives. Reflecting on Mr. Inoue's life, and watching my own films or documentary theories, I have a little more awareness of the choice of protagonists. It's among those characters who fight against powerful things, like Forward, God's Army! The protagonist of "Kenzo Okuzaki" gave himself a title called "Divine Army Equal Soldier", which is of course a name he invented himself. But by inventing this title, Okosaki also gained the energy to fight against powerful power in reality. So "gaining strength from fiction" became the belief of my documentary theory, which is what Full Body Novelist taught me.
Your work has also gotten longer and longer since The Full Body Novelist. Why? Is there also a change in the way you work?
Hara Ichio: (Laughs) Then I'll tell the truth! Forward, Divine Army! The protagonist of "Kenzo Okuzaki" is a character with very intense feelings. In the process of visiting the former soldiers and comrades, the huge energy he carried also triggered a strong reaction from his comrades, and for film production, it was possible to shoot that kind of very intense picture. When doing film editing, we choose this intense and powerful scene. However, the protagonists of "Minamata Mandala" and "Japan National vs Sennan Asbestos Village" are just ordinary people or "living people", and they will not use their fierce energy to stimulate the strong reactions of those around them like Mr. Okosaki. The basic purpose of the documentary is to show the feelings that the subject has. As long as you hold the camera against the kind of person who has great energy, you can "bang" the scene with strong emotional expression; however, ordinary people cannot show that strong energy at any time. And in daily life, in the scene of real emotions, the strongly expressed part is not too much after all, and a very bland picture may appear. When photographing these ordinary people, if you don't intertwine these scenes of a large number and variety of emotional expressions, you can't show the essence of these ordinary people's emotions. Therefore, when the camera is facing the living person, the scene assigned to the character is naturally more. In addition, I also mentioned that the later stage focuses on the portrayal of "group portraits", and the increase in the number of characters is bound to affect the length of the film. In general, not only does the portrayal of each character take a lot of time, but the group portrait portrayal contains many characters, so the length of the film inevitably increases a lot.
Stills from Minamata Mandala.
I would like to focus on asking some questions about the latest film, Minamata Mandala. We know that there have been many works about Minamata disease in the history of Japanese documentaries. First of all, I would like to ask you when did you become interested in the subject of Minamata disease again? Why did you dedicate this work to director Nori Akira Tomoto?
Kazuo Hara: When I was working on "Goodbye CP", director Noriaki Tomoto had already produced and published his documentary about Minamata disease. In other words, when I was a new director, Director Tomoto had already filmed the subject of Minamata disease. Director Tomoto's filming of the minamata disease theme coincided with the climax of the Japanese civic movement and power struggle, which had a wide impact, and it was also a time when the number of seriously ill minamata disease patients was still large. It was a very exciting time for the film (shooting), and director Tomoto was also in his prime. For the next 30 or 40 years, Director Tomoto continued to make documentaries about Minamata disease. Until he was old and could not continue to make movies one day, it just so happened that the related civic movement had gradually lost its energy and could no longer make a great impact. It was also at this time that I was invited to make a film about Minamata disease.
At first, I also had a lot of doubts, I didn't understand why I should continue to pay attention to this issue at a time when Director Tomoto had retired and the movement seemed to have declined, and I was a little indifferent. With these speculations, I embarked on a journey to Minamata. When I arrived at Minamata, I found that the problems related to Minamata disease had actually changed a lot from when Director Tomoto was shooting. Director Tomoto's focus is mainly on the so-called "first generation" of patients with serious illnesses and their participation in the protests of the civic movement. With the passage of time, the problem could not be solved in essence, and the struggle of these people gradually weakened, and many of them passed away. And Japanese society seems to have slowly forgotten about the problem of Minamata disease. At the same time, the children of the first generation of patients have mostly grown up. Many of these people actually carry the toxin of Minamata disease in their bodies, but earlier because they were young and strong, many symptoms did not appear. However, when this group of people grew older, their physical strength was weakened, and the symptoms of Minamata disease gradually became prominent, so there was a group such as the second generation of Minamata disease, and the number was still increasing.
The sea of fire where Minamata disease occurs is rich in fish, and the fish is very delicious, and I have tasted it. People who live in the local area have naturally eaten the fish in that sea for decades, and each fish contains more or less a part of the mercury toxin. Eating these fish does not cause the severe effect of Minamata disease at once, but if these mercury fish are continuously ingested for thirty or forty years, the toxins will continue to accumulate in the body and weaken people's physical strength. The side effects of depositing mercury in the human body will appear at a certain point in time, although it will not become a serious disease, but it still has a great impact on the body of the second generation of patients. When I learned of this situation, Director Tomoto was too old to continue shooting this subject, and it was also the time when the generations of Minamata disease patients changed, so if anyone else continued to pay attention to this problem, it was naturally one of my generation of filmmakers who was the next generation of Director Tomoto, and I naturally took over the baton.
So do you think that in addition to taking over the record of Minamata disease by director Tomoto in the sense of the times, is there also a kind of inheritance in the sense of filmmaking? Or how does your creative thinking and shooting methods when shooting the minamata theme have changed and differed from the previous generation of minamata films?
Kazuo Hara: When director Tomoto was filming, the roles of both the perpetrator and the victim were very clear, and the momentum of the Japanese civic movement at that time was also very strong. But by the time Director Tomoto died, the momentum of the movement was gone, and many people felt that the minamata movement would no longer have any impact. When I first made the film Minamata Mandala, the first subjects were people who had moved from Minamata to Osaka due to illness. At that time, a group of patients filed a lawsuit against the country against the Supreme Court of Japan and won. That victory was a good news for the Minamata movement, brought courage to everyone, and also regained some momentum for the movement... During this process, our cameras have not stopped. I call the images taken by Director Tomoto "pre-minamata", while I shot "post-production". The significance of this division is that the early stage of the struggle is very clear from the object to the goal, that is, the popular power struggle against the Japanese government. But when shooting the post-production footage, my biggest feeling is that the national side has not even had the will to solve this problem. After more than six decades of struggle, the problem has not been resolved, that is, the government that should have solved the problem but has done nothing has changed, and it has been exercising power. What are the reasons behind this? This became my biggest concern.
Nor is this a problem specific to Minamata disease( the fight). There is a tendency in Japanese society to believe that the so-called "people" should forgive the mistakes made by the powers. If power does not pursue its politics for the sake of the people, it will not be forgiven and will anger the people. In this case, "Wouldn't it be enough to overthrow the power" is the general "democratic" way of thinking. But this does not seem to be the case in the Japanese context. There has also been a growing debate in recent years about whether democracy has never taken root in Japan. And it seems to me that Minamata itself has not been essentially resolved for many years precisely because among these so-called commoners and politicians, the values of democracy have never really taken root, and this is the biggest problem. We took the camera and went deep into the actual life of Minamata patients because we thought that whether the people repeatedly condoneed the existence of power or not had to be answered in the observation of the lives of ordinary people.
The people's thinking is also a big reason why the problem cannot be truly solved, which is also reflected in "Japan National vs Sennan Asbestos Village". I would like to ask you how to ensure that the responsibility of the government and the people's own problems are reflected and coexist in the film? How do you express them in a balanced way?
Kazuo Hara: The criticism of democracy among the Japanese people has been involved in all walks of life in Japan, and Minamata disease is only one of the issues. When I photographed Minamata Disease, although the lack of people's fighting spirit and fighting power was a major theme, it was not my whole purpose. Although Minamata patients have some shortcomings in motor ability or perception, everyone is also working hard to live, and everyone has their own meaning of living, as a documentary author, it is also crucial to record the images of their hard work. The beauty of the life that people strive to live coexist with the lack of resistance in the face of power, and it is possible that it is precisely because they are trying to manage the beauty of life that they forget the original intention of rebellion, and I sometimes use such pictures to hint at this kind of thinking... It is our job for documentary writers to portray not only the positive side, but also the positive and the negative, so that we can show the fun of human beings themselves.
You said before that in the past forty years, the Japanese people have undergone great changes in their psychology, losing their sense of struggle and passion. I would like to ask whether I can still find someone like Kenzo Okosaki who bluntly says that "the emperor is a coward"?
Hara Ichio: I think such a person does not exist anymore. Of course, this is all my personal opinion. After the defeat in 1945, everyone started from scratch until the 1980s, when they regained the peak of economic prosperity. I think the energy that the Japanese had after that gradually weakened with the downturn of the economy. The Japanese had a powerful energy in Tsuchon's time, and in the 1970s there was a large anti-power student movement such as the All-Claus Fighting (i.e., the All-Academia Sorcerer's Conference). But in my generation, feeling that the energy possessed by the Japanese has begun to turn into decline, the generation below me seems to be getting weaker. In general, I think that as the generations change, the more you go to the younger generation, the weaker this energy becomes.
Minamata Mandala working photo.
Next, I would like to ask some technical questions. Minamata Mandala is now about six hours long, so I would like to ask you how many hours the total length of the video footage is? And what's your way of working? What are the editing habits?
Kazuo Hara: The filming of "Minamata Mandala" was completed in the era of digital video. Whether it is a video tape or a data card, it is not as expensive as film film, so it can be said that it has now entered an era where photography is very easy. Correspondingly, the content of the shoot is easily added to the accumulation. In addition, two cameras were used for the filming of Minamata Mandala, and the sound of the filming can be 100% included. For example, the A machine I use mainly records the subject, while the B machine used by another photographer records the surroundings of the subject. The recording of these two machines was almost uninterrupted, so the accumulation of footage reached a huge number. After confirming with the staff just now, it is said that the total length of the material for "Minamata Mandala" has exceeded 1,000 hours.
How did more than 1,000 hours of footage be reduced to a six-hour finished film?
Hara Ichigo: To say that the method is actually nothing special, that is, carefully selected and slowly edited. A version we made in the beginning took about nine hours. After we had read the nine-hour version in its entirety, we decided which parts were to be deleted, and an eight-hour version was produced... Through constant deletion and selection, the length of the film has finally reached the current six hours, also because we feel that the content can no longer be streamlined. All in all, isn't it nice to be shorter than Wang Bing's eight-hour movie? [Laughs]
I know you've always been in charge of your own work. Why did you choose to do this?
Hara Ichigo: Because there is no money. Asking a photographer is for money, but I don't need to pay for myself.
How has your work style changed from the 1970s and 1980s when you produced three recent works, Nihonkoku vs. Izumi Asbestos Village, Reiwa Kazumi (れいわ一揆, 2019) and Minamata Mandala?
Kazuo Hara: Of course, each work is facing a different subject, so I've been thinking about what kind of lenses and methods to use to shoot and present different objects. So the way I work has changed in every film.
"Reiwa Ichibu", completed between "Nihon Kuni vs Sennan Asbestos Village" and "Minamata Mandala", is an interesting work in which we see a group of "Reiwa Shin-kun" elections that try to do different politics or do politics differently, but after reading it, I can't help but have a darker idea, which is another story. The director's other political works focus on resistance and confrontation, but this one is about "active" and active struggle for power. Isn't "revolt" (anger) the most "interesting" thing for politics? Joining the "game" may mean being swallowed up by the (political) "machine" sooner or later. After all, one of the protagonists, Anfubu, also said a very clever sentence in the movie: "In the face of politics/politicians, we often fantasize about surprises, but everything will not change." It's a cycle of small hopes and big disappointments. ”
Hara Kazuo: In 1945, Japan introduced democracy because of its defeat in the war. However, in the 75 years since the end of the war, "has democracy really taken root among the Japanese?" Such questions about tracing back to the source are always raised. Including me, I also have such a critical consciousness. It is precisely because I have such doubts that my doubts will be integrated into the image.
Japan completed an astonishing renaissance after the war. Economically, Japanese society is quite mature. However, after experiencing maturity, the society is then dominated by corruption and the market. Therefore, in today's Japan, all kinds of wounds (which have festered) flow pus. It is precisely because of the long-term dominance of the incompetent and self-interested Abe regime that systems such as family relations have been destroyed – and that, of course, includes democratic values.
The man, Taro Yamamoto, ran as a candidate for the Senate election with a slogan such as "The person concerned should be brought into parliament." As a result, many people who had not cared about the election before showed great interest in Yamamoto Taro. A year later, however, internal strife arose among the "Reiwa New Selection Group". After the matter was made public, many supporters also chose to give up. Although many of these supporters think they have been deceived by Taro Yamamoto, I personally think that the voice of "being deceived by Taro Yamamoto" is wrong. Because fundamentally, the Japanese state would never get any better without letting go of the expectation of a good leader, and not everyone taking responsibility for democracy.
Just by watching the movie, I didn't have any hope for the "Reiwa New Selection Group" and the people in it. For example, this professor at the University of Tokyo, An fubu, believes that campaign promises/slogans such as "You have always been exploited, let me be your mayor (and change all this)" are useless and meaningless. Isn't this logic precisely the "foundation" of democratic politics?
Kazuo Hara: As your question mentioned, this means expressing despair that the Japanese have not yet truly learned democracy. Although most of the situation you describe in your question is talking about the people living in the countryside in Japan, they have no concern at all about the documentaries we make, they don't go to the cinema much, they are culturally backward and at ease, and no matter how the people in power carry out political operations, they do not have any problems in pursuing what role Japan plays in the international arena today, but they have been supporting the Abe regime for a long time... When you see such a group of people, you will inevitably think that the Japanese people have not learned democracy at all. In the causal chain of negative associations, we wonder where the entry point for the future is. This situation really makes people feel helpless, so the mentality has become somewhat dim.
Most of your work is a track record of the subject, but there is also a lack of interspersed with interviews that you yourself do not appear on camera. I would like to ask you how these interviews play a role in your work? Because we know that some directors choose the complete viewing angle when shooting documentaries, and your shooting and interviewing are largely involved in the work.
Hara Kazuo: I started making Minamata Mandala from the direct follow-up of the characters, and in the process, as an author, I certainly wanted to understand the deeper side of the people being photographed. Digging into this deeper approach includes both direct interviews with people and records of their private daily lives, such as interviews about the scenes where fishermen work. Asking what kind of questions to shoot (without having to intervene) to dig out the deep feelings of the object is a question I have been exploring. So for me, the methods of filming documentaries are not just one but various, and the ultimate goal is to go deep into the object.
Do you have any other directors you admire or love?
Hara Ichigo: Yes! (On the move...) Although I don't have a very deep understanding of directors outside of Japan, I really appreciate the Chinese director Wang Bing. Director Wang Bing and I once had a conversation, and he also shot with his own camera, so there was a sense of closeness between them. At the same time, as a photographer, when I look at his new works, I always realize his new explorations and methodologies in the use of camera positions.
Do you have any other topics of interest? What else do you want to shoot next?
Kazuo Hara: I think the subjects I want to shoot are probably encountered occasionally. One day, I will meet someone, this person may be introduced to me by someone else, or it may be someone who can arouse my desire to shoot when I meet, because before the meeting, maybe I have formed an image of this person in my mind.
One last question, I would like to ask the director if he still firmly believes that confrontation is a way to avoid death?
Hara Kazuo: Whether it's in capitalist society or in a village on a small island... As long as there is a state-like system, there will be people who dominate the power to control the people. Moreover, in different contexts, whether or not the "people" are given the titles of "citizens", "citizens", and "living people", they are also exploited by power. Through this exploitation, the powerful accumulate and consolidate their wealth, and the exploitation intensifies. In this framework of oppression, we ordinary people will also produce emotions such as joy and sorrow. And what I want is to break free from this exploitation and become free. Although human beings have all kinds of desires, such as wanting to become famous, get a degree, get a happy family, and become more beautiful, the most important thing for people is the desire to become free. In order to be free, we must fight against those in power who suppress our freedom. There is no other way.
Is making a movie a way for you to gain your freedom?
Hara Kazuo: (Hand is better than OK, use Chinese to say yes).
P.S. After the interview was completed, the original male director continued to communicate with the author and asked some questions. Considering the completeness of the dialogue, the director's narrative is presented here as it is:
Hara Kazuo: After the completion of "Minamata Mandala", we submitted to European film festivals, such as Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Nyon, etc., including Film Festivals in the United States. I probably have the feeling that people in Europe and the United States can't appreciate works like Minamata Mandala, maybe they don't have the sense to appreciate such works... This kind of perception of works from Japan is probably not interoperable with Europeans and Americans. I used to wonder if the reason I couldn't appreciate it was because the film was so Japanese and full of Japanese elements? But looking at Asia, including the Shanghai Film Festival, which recently made its world premiere, I also learned that audiences in Shanghai have a high opinion of the film. In addition to China, we will also have an invitation from the Korean Film Festival. I think this work will be appreciated in Asia. So I have the feeling of "Europe and the United States can't do it"!
In Japan, Minamata Mandala has not had many test screenings (note: Tokyo has been released since September 11), and although not many people have seen it, I have heard their feedback that this is a very important work for Japanese society today. Everyone who has seen it in Japan understands the importance of the work, and there is a great possibility that asian audiences will understand the work, but when it comes to Europe and the United States, it seems that they do not understand the significance of the work.
Maybe it's true, and that's because people in this world don't have much interest in Minamata disease. There are so many problems in the world. For example, Europe is now most concerned about immigration, and the works won by the Berlin Film Festival seem to be related to the theme of immigration. Of course, people all over the world have something to worry about when it comes to public issues like Minamata disease or migration. However, in terms of cinematic performance, we consider Minamata Mandala to be such a low-level work. I think it would be nice to talk about the relevant people in Europe and the United States, if they have a vision of production methods and performance methods when judging whether the film is important, but no matter how you look at it now, maybe there is no way to judge the film. Seriously, if you were an Asian, even if it was a small island nation like Japan, which has a heart and feeling problem, probably because you are in the same Asia, you will be able to understand it happily. I am also thinking that in the future, my film investment will focus on film festivals in Asia.
Editor-in-Charge: Fan Zhu
Proofreader: Yan Zhang