The YAMAGATA Documentary Film Library Friday Theater（August 24 Fri）

In Remembrance of Director Yanagisawa Hisao

Screenings at the Yamagata Documentary Film Library present documentaries and movies rarely shown on television or in theaters, including works from the Film Library vaults.

Not That Way but This

15:00-　18:50-（Screens twice）

 

YIDFF ’97 The Pursuit of Japanese Documentary

Director: Yanagisawa Hisao／1982／113 min

●Notes

Having worked as an assistant director at Shochiku in Kyoto before the war, Yanagisawa Hisao made his début as a director of documentaries in the post war period. Beginning in the late 1960s with the release of his Children Before the Dawn (“Yoake mae no kodomotachi,” 1968) he has continued to document disabled children. From that time he altogether made 5 films over 20 years, casting his critical gaze in a variety of directions. In this work, he shows the daily lives of a group of mentally disabled adults in Chita, Aichi Prefecture. 45 year old Toki strictly observes a daily working routine of simple tasks, straightening books on shelves in a book store, and visiting a regular circuit of pachinko parlors in order to empty their ashtrays. Yanagisawa introduces us to each of the film’s subjects in a similar manner: “bad boy” Noboru for instance, or 51 year old Kayo, who fends off everyone with a bamboo stick. The community came into existence quite gradually, inspired by an exchange set up by some of the parents. Overcoming the objections of the local government association, the residents move into a rented building and, working with their guidance staff, they decide to create a facility based on plans they themselves have drawn up. Their parents and the local government association, however, believe that such a scheme is unworkable. In the rest of the film, we see a faithful portrayal of the group figuring out who should be assigned what task as they remodel and finally complete work on the building turning it into a communal work place they dub “Popeye House.”