Nippon Suicide Pact
(“Nihon Shinju”)
JAPAN / 2000 / Japanese, Korean / Color / Video / 106 min
Director, Script: Oura Nobuyuki
Photography: Tsuji Tomohiko
Editing: Nakanishi Yoshihisa, Oura Nobuyuki
Sound: Kawashima Kazuyoshi
Production Company, Source: KUNITACHI
1-8-4 Shin-Machi, Kokubunji, Tokyo 185-0004 JAPAN
Phone & Fax: 81-42-324-2454
In the spring of 2000, seasoned critic Haryu Ichiro traveled to Kwangju, Korea. This trip, a journey of reminiscence and imagination, was a culmination of his life and ideas. During his trip, it was as if the darkness of modern Japan was being summoned forth by his ideas and his fantasies to appear before our eyes, crossing the boundaries of Korean and Asian space and time.
[Director’s Statement] Using the discourse of art and literary critic Haryu Ichiro, I wanted to re-examine the sooften skewed and distorted view of 20th century Japan. I made this work intending to use the associations created when my own imagination is woven together with people’s distant memories to create a universe in the image of a mandala.
Oura Nobuyuki
Began filmmaking as well as painting and sculpture in his 20s. Woodblock print series featuring the emperor called Keeping Perspective broke taboos and invited censorship. As a result, his works in the collection of the Toyama Prefectural Museum of Modern Art were sold off and 470 catalogs were incinerated. Other films include New Gulliver’s Travels (1974) and Keeping Perspective (1994). |
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• Japanese Panorama | My Wife’s Features | Then, She Closes Another Eye | An Error with Wings | Tei-chan’s Roots | 35.4 °C | Nippon Suicide Pact | Dialogue 1999 | Takashi and His Friends | A Patch of Blue Sky |