United Red Army
The Age
Tuesday August 4, 2009
KINO, 7.30pmMore than three hours long, Koji Wakamatsu's deliberately austere and punishing account of the slow implosion of a Japanese ultra-leftist faction in the early 1970s puts most of MIFF in the shade. Wakamatsu, who knew members of the group personally, approaches his factual material in a bold, experimental way: the film initially resembles a straight documentary with brief dramatised scenes to break the flow of voiceover. For a while it seems that individual personality has been erased, but the unconscious returns with a vengeance in the gruelling middle section, as the group's surviving members hole up in a mountain retreat where their pursuit of ideological purity spirals into collective psychosis. (Their endlessly repeated mantra is Criticise yourself!) If any work of art can transcend politics, this one does; it would be hard to imagine a more devastating portrayal of the horrific consequences of fanaticism of whatever stripe.-- JW
© 2009 The Age