Can a documentary, a film that the average viewer believes to be a presentation of facts, exist outside of an entirely objective space? As some examples in this course, such as “Demon Lover Diary” and “Lost Lost Lost” would indicate, once the hand of the filmmaker begins to shape the material with his/her personal account of the events, the addition of subjectivity does not necessarily detract from the veracity of the film, it is simply recontextualized. That being said, Kazuo Hara still remains a bit of a horse of a different color. Hara has created a diary film (which, in the same vein as Pincus and DeMott’s work, can be fully understood as a subjective experience of events) but has also produced several films with less personal subjects. Yet as Hara’s can easily be considered “activist filmmaking,” does it not lose some of its objectivity in pushing an agenda? “The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On” stylistically blurs the line between observational cinema and narrative fiction, thus making it harder to pinpoint Kazuo Hara’s stand on the issues it presets.

The epigram, so to speak, at the head of this week’s reading, somewhat uncomfortably makes the viewer question Kazuo Hara’s documentary intentions. As he says straightforwardly he wants to have his documentary subjects act as action heroes, making action documentary films. His protagonist in “The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On” certainly provides this for him, as he is a volatile and uncontrollable subject. He seems to be the perfect “character,” so to speak, so that Kazuo Hara may attempt in his filmmaking to break the rigid taboos of Japanese society. Kento Okuzaki not only openly discusses his botched assassination attempt on the emperor, he also commits acts of violence onscreen against his commanding officers, now frail old men. This sort of insurgence would have rarely found its way onto the Japanese screen. Hara doubly has his hand in breaking such taboos, both directly and editorially. By selecting a subject such as Kento Okuzaki, whose anti-government and slightly unstable convictions were by no means clandestine, Kazuo Hara prepared himself for shooting a disturbingly unconventional film that would likely incense the more traditional viewer. With such an explosive subject, Hara’s film is an interesting comment on Jean Rouch’s idea of the camera as catalyst. If the events in front of the camera are more cataclysmic, is it merely observational and honest to capture them, or is one implicated by the foresight that such a subject could produce these results? This may be considered a reappropriation of the role of the camera/filmmaker, one that Hara took advantage of to allow himself the opportunity to diverge from documentary conventions.

Both Hara’s shooting techniques and editorial decisions mirrored his subject’s radical politics. He supports Kento Okuzaki’s violent nature by rolling his camera (some would say “standing idlely by”) as Okuzaki attacks two of his former commanding officers. One of whom is a weak, nearly paralyzed old man fresh out of surgery. Okuzaki’s attack put him back in the hospital, and despite pleas and chastisement from the commanding officer’s family, Hara did nothing but continue to roll as the events unfolded. This non-interventionist approach most likely was more objective and honest than if Hara had interceded. But it certainly does not free him from the moral implications of acting as an observer to such proceedings. However, it can be argued that by showcasing such violent material, leading the audience to question what the filmmaker’s responsibility is in such a situation, one ultimately directs the viewer to question their understanding of truth through cinema and/or the meanings of their desires to see such action unfold. By this I mean that as the viewer lambastes the filmmaker for not stopping the abhorrent action, he is led to question whether he desires a true record of what has transpired (including violence) or if morally he’d rather that the filmmaker interrupt the events. Kazuo Hara breaks the taboos by depicting violence in this uninterrupted fashion, implicating the viewer in the action and leading him to question his voyeuristic pleasure, if any, received. Hara also challenges authority himself by blatantly disregarding the police when they try to prohibit him from filming. This is a far more obvious breaking of a taboo, which is the unquestioned submission to authority figures. As an activist film maker, this non-cooperative stance is complimentary to the subjects he explores. Apparently it is successful, as his film Sayonara, CP! brought about reform in the public’s understanding and interaction with the physically disabled. Using this protest aesthetic allows Kazuo Hara the ability to passively record his passions, then present them to an audience as a form of activism.

“From my opinion, a documentary should explore things people don’t want explored, bring things out of the closet, to examine why people want to hide specific things.” What is it about Kazuo Hara’s films that make us uncomfortable, and what does that say about us? What sort of cultural judgments can we make about how uneasy such material makes different cultures? Hara presents himself as an outsider-observer, yet his home movie aesthetic with its lapses in sync sound do not necessarily present the material he has recorded as completely reliable/free from directorial influence. This would not necessarily preclude the film from being seen as making a strong case for the cause, but to some discerning eyes, could take one out of the events and into the idea of them as “film,” thus moving from the active to the passive.