Artist of Fasting

Adachi Masao returns with his latest feature that demonstrates he has lost none of his political edge. Inspired by Franz Kafka’s short story A Hunger Artist, the satirical comedy follows a silent nameless man who stages what appears to be a hunger strike in an outdoor shopping district in Utsunomiya city, Tochigi prefecture. The unexplained act of individual non-action as action creates confusion and deliberation in the community, and soon the lip-sealed protagonist finds himself becoming a media sensation and surrounded by an entourage of eccentrics – ranging from yakuzas to the Doctors for Borders – who claim to speak on his behalf. As noise musician Otomo Yoshihide’s unusually upbeat soundtrack skips along, the sex-tinted comedy finds Adachi taking a bite into a range of controversial topics from ISIS to the historical discrimination of the aboriginal Ainu people from northern Japan. Harking back to performance art of the 1960s in which he took part, the shooting of the film was in itself a performative intervention as Adachi and his team shot primarily at one inner city location over a period of a month. A cutting indictment of contemporary Japan, the absurdist theatre staged by Adachi questions the callous abuse of the individual by the state as well as the inability of onlookers to lend a hand to the defenceless.

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