[/floatr]Village Voice: Kazuo Hara Crosses the Line
Though it displays not a single dead body, gory gash, or bombed-out building, and limits its on-screen violence to heated arguments and abortive senior-citizen wrestling matches, Kazuo Hara's The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (1987) nonetheless stands as one of the most harrowing, astonishing documentaries about war ever thrown onto celluloid. It reveals a side of Japan little seen by American audiences: the repressed culture of an older generation, still struggling with the demons unleashed by the atrocities of World War II, souls broken beyond repair. Hara follows Kenzo Okuzaki, a sixtysomething veteran who at first appears to be nothing more than a shell-shocked, crystal-eyed crank, proudly boasting of the time he tried to assassinate Emperor Hirohito with a slingshot. In a vehicle hand-painted with anti-Hirohito slogans, he drives around the Imperial grounds bullhorning until impeccably white-gloved policemen haul him away. The scene plays like performance art of the insane, with Okuzaki evidently egged on by Hara's camera...more...
I remember seeing this on television in Britain some years ago. Whatever you make of Okuzaki, it's an extraordinary documentary and I'd like to see the other work by Hara mentioned in the article. There are a couple of clips of this one on YouTube (no subtitles). The first is of Okuzaki protesting in his van, the second is the introduction to the film. He died in 2005.
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