The Prisoner/Terrorist

A film with an unusual form and substance and that has a lot to do with the background of the maker. When Adachi Masao made this film, he hadn’t made a film for 30 years. The style and message of the film seem to come straight from a different era. The era in which films could be outspokenly avant-garde and extremely political. Adachi was once a scriptwriter for Pink Pictures (narrative porn) and for film makers like Wakamatsu and Oshima. He radicalised in the 1970s and joined the Japanese Red Army, an armed political organisation. Now we would call it a terrorist group. With part of that little red army, Adachi left for the Lebanon to fight alongside the Palestinians. More than 20 years later he was arrested there for passport fraud and disappeared for years into Lebanese and Japanese prisons.
Now Adachi has made a film about an imprisoned terrorist and you could say he knows what he’s talking about. The protagonist is probably based on Kozo Okamoto, a member of the Red Army who is still underground in the Lebanon. But also on Adachi’s own experiences: the repressive prison system, the torture and feverish visions. And that gives this film its stunning intensity. Of course Adachi is lacking competitive rhythm as a film maker, but he still has a furious shot. He follows his tortured imprisoned terrorist a long way into insanity. (GjZ)

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