Kazuo Hara, Japan, 1994, 157'
Kazuo Hara, who shocked the Japanese establishment with The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On and Goodbye CP, focuses on controversial writer Mitsuharu Inoue in this forceful documentary. Originally intending to spend years on the project, Hara soon realized that Inoue was dying from cancer and adjusted his plan. The result is a moving film that captures the essence of the contentious writer’s life-and the significance of his death. In his writings and in his personal biography, Inoue played along the border between truth and fiction, an element that Hara exposes by sifting through the layers of reality and fabrication surrounding the old man’s life.