Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 4:53 pm
I couldn't be more excited to see a new film on the horizon, Adachi Masao's Prisoner/Terrorist (here's the official site). It premiered in NY at the Japan Cuts festival put on by the Japan Society. Few reviews are around the internet, for starters Firecracker had this to say: "...it is easy to see that the director has been away from the camera for twenty years because the film plays like the kind of abstract, didactic, stream-of-consciousness political tracts that Godard made in the 70s with Jean-Pierre Gorin under the Dziga Vertov Group (indeed according to some sources Godard met Adachi in Palestine)."
Adachi talks about his experiences with the Japanese Red Army and PFLP (he's also working on a film about the Red Army with Wakamatsu) with Jasper Sharp in a recently published midnighteye.com interview. I found this excerpt especially interesting (but the whole thing is definitely worth reading):
edit: I meant to say it premiered in the US in NY.
Adachi talks about his experiences with the Japanese Red Army and PFLP (he's also working on a film about the Red Army with Wakamatsu) with Jasper Sharp in a recently published midnighteye.com interview. I found this excerpt especially interesting (but the whole thing is definitely worth reading):
I've been a fan of Adachi since seeing his meditative A.K.A. Serial Killer, which is one of the most unique works to come out of the Japanese New Wave. It forms a narrative glacially by going back through Nagayama Norio's (a killer similar to Enokizu Iwao whom Imamura's Vengeance is Mine is based on) crime scenes and haunts during his spree and subsequent manhunt. It has no actors, minimal amount of voice over, and merely portrays the areas in question, decidedly part of Adachi's (and some of his close friends and collaborators) notions of the Theory of Landscapes (which was eloquently explored in Oshima Nagisa's The Man Who Left His Will On Film as well.) You can read more about this midnighteye feature where a inspired connection is made between Adachi and Straub-Huillet (though I would call Adachi "dirtier").Adachi: The reason I chose this particular theme for my cinematic work Prisoner/Terrorist is that I wanted to look back upon my experiences from the last 35 years, and from there to sum up my own theoretical ideas and the experiences gained from my other activities, both relating to the revolution and other matters.
Sharp: What do you mean by the word 'revolution'?
Adachi: I'm using the word 'revolution' in its most general sense, talking not only about revolutionary movements in the field of politics, but also in the arts and other socio-economic areas. My idea is that the world is moving on a daily basis and is in a transitional period towards a final revolution of mankind on every level. My use of the word is not limited to any one specific meaning.
edit: I meant to say it premiered in the US in NY.