Concluding her review, Sarah Hamblin summarizes it by stating how “United Red Army [2007] explores this tension between commitment and violence, asking how we foster and maintain revolutionary political commitment without it dissolving into mindless cruelty or the ineffectual logic of martyrdom,” (104). She proceeds to say the film leaves the audience with the choice to observe the failures and raptures that led to the URA ‘s destruction. Finally, she suggests the film gives the audience room to self-critique its way into “act[ing] anew in meaningful ways” (104). While I see how the emphasis stressed through the URA’s training in self-criticism could lead to that conclusion, the interview with Kôji Wakamatsu denies this possibility. As he says, “[t]hese former activists who sold out and sit around and talk about the good old days piss me off” (187). His philosophy is not a mellow. It seems unlikely he would allow a sense of passivity to the end message of his film. Through the interview there is still a sharp tonality of rebellion of non-conformism. His own involvement with the student movements give logic to United Red Army being a response to The Choice of Hercules (2006) through choice to do a mockery of the imposition of points of view. For example, during their family member’s pleading, the close-up of Kunio’s face infiltrates his display of emotion which denies him the possibility to hide his tears and emotional struggle. Even more so, the camera forces the audience to see all of their reactions—even the most minuscule ones—to counteract their complete lack in The Choice of Hercules. The film takes time to narrate the complicated history of the student movement, the creation of leftist groups, the fragmenting of those groups, their radicalization, and ultimately, their self-destruction. Yes, part of the motivation might be, as Hamblin observes, a direct attempt to counteract “Japan’s historical amnesia regarding the radical student movement,” (102). The documentary segments offer an unforgiving amount of historical and factual information regarding dates, names, groups, etc., but in Wakamatsu’s way, the most valid and truthful lines are not those pulled from a history book, but instead, those addressed through the characters—most significantly, the characters through which Wakamatsu is represented. As he mentioned during the interview, “I become the main character as much as possible…If you lose your childish nature, you lose your true emotions,” (184). In United Red Army, I believe this is best represented through the actions and words of the youngest character, Motohisa Kato. His cries for the executed members, his silent opposition, his whispered truths of “this isn’t revolution,” and his condemnation of the groups amnesia and absolution of their actions and lack of courage exemplifies at once the childish, ineffective, powerless, and lost nature of the group, as well as Wakamatsu’s own critical appraisal of any set structure. This is best highlighted in the conclusion of his interview where he says it doesn’t matter if the radicalized group gains power. It is always important to have and pay attention to the opposition—I think this was his real purpose of the extended view of self-criticism and its showcase in the film. It wasn’t to encourage the audience to use it in historical examination, as Hamblin suggested, but instead to show the quick dictatorial hierarchy deriving from the formation of the institution—any institution—and the vital need to always find the courage to break away and fight it, as Motohisa did at the very end.
If Masato Harada’s “The Choice of Hercules” was a “hymn to the cops” (as quoted by Sarah Hamblin in her review of Koji Wakamatsu’s “United Red Army”), then Wakamatsu’s “United Red Army” isn’t necessarily a hymn to the Red Army members, but rather a bleak and dragging look at the “meaningless” use of self-critique by the RLF that eventually led to their downfall. If Wakamatsu’s worry was that Harada’s take on the Asama Sanso siege in “The Choice of Hercules” “was in danger of becoming its historical record”, than through showing us what happened on the inside of the lodge, he allows us not necessarily to sympathize with the revolutionaries (although you could if you really wanted to), but at least to give us a sense of their final moments of clinging on to this idea that they are still “fighting for the revolution to end war and inequality in the world”. This idea that they are still fighting for what they were in the beginning is squashed quickly when Masakuni’s mother asks ““but aren’t your actions contradicting your words?”. But the group’s delusions of grandeur began long before the siege of the lodge. As soon as the two revolutionary groups in the film formed to begin military training on the mountain, that’s when it all went downhill (even though they were uphill, HA! Just kidding I’m not funny). It’s pure irony that although Mori foams at the mouth for everyone else to critique, he can’t even critique himself (and when he does, as in when he steals Nagata, it’s extremely brief) or accept responsibility for the death of Ozaki, saying instead that it was a “death by defeatism”. These tactics of self-torture are truly “meaningless”, and the film’s muted, at times unsaturated colors show just how horrible the conditions were if you belonged to the URA. Taking into account that Wakamatsu was there during these revolutionary events, his film can be interpreted as a self-critique of the actions of the URA, RLF, etc. by one of its own members, therefore making the film’s bleak look not on account of political propaganda, but on account of telling the story as it was meant to be told: With a “gritty visual eloquence”, and truth, that only Wakamatsu could provide
Nicely done. Just one clarification: KW wasn't actually involved in the violence; he wasn't with the URA in the mountains. But he was friends with them. He somewhere said (wasn't it in one of the docs on Japan & 68) that he turned to filmmaking so that he would not kill a cop?
After I think it was Toyama’s death, a montage of flashbacks of her and her friends participation in the first revolutionary movements in the early 60s reveal the promising beginning of the revolution that has now turned into a horror movie with two tyrannical leaders seemingly killing off their followers one by one. Wakamatsu’s film seems to support the early revolutionary acts, intercutting documentary footage with restaged fictional scenes with rock music playing behind them and inter-titles revealing the certain events the revolutionary groups participated in and foregrounding the police arrests. However, when the URA goes off to a mountain house in the country, the group’s efforts turn on its members instead of the state. In Sarah Hamblin’s review of “United Red Army,” she concludes it is during this segment of the film where, “the film’s primary focus emerges as the utter failure of the revolutionary movement to capitalize on this energy and realize its goal” (103). The leaders Nagata and Mori create a setting with as much or more paranoia, control, and fear as the state they are fighting against. Nagata in particular becomes a big brother like character. Every once and a while some characters will be speaking about their actual thoughts on self criticism. The scene plays out as if they are alone, then Nagata’s intent gaze is revealed to us, as if we are only seeing the scene because she is witnessing it. She seems to see every act of dissent the characters partake in, as if she is all seeing and knowing. In the mountains, the URA seems to become the submissive population they are so critical of. Many members are shown to object to their comrades being executed, but they all remain inactive to stop it. As they see the Japanese population as complicit in the states power over them because of their mindless submission, they seem to become equally submissive as the revolution they were involved in loses its sight. This realization is dramatically shown near the end of the film through close ups when one of the members berates each person including himself of their failure to step in during their comrades executions. Once Nagata and Mori are arrested and the group is on the run they become more sympathetic. Unlike “The Choice of Hercules,” we spend the entire time with the revolutionaries instead of the cops. He isn’t making a detective action genre film. Hamblin argues this scene is presented as “ridiculous” with “odds so overwhelming that it could only result in capture or death” (103-104). “United Red Army” is concerned with the tragic conclusion of the URA’s actions, not the successful police leadership of one man. They are individuals instead of faceless kidnappers with snipers. Wakamatsu does not justify their actions. In fact, their hostage is easily the most sympathetic, shown as an innocent woman thrust into a situation she had nothing to do with. She is given the most close ups, and the subtle background music playing clearly positions the audience on her side. The film presents the revolutionaries as people who have dedicated themselves to a revolutionary group that has already turned on itself and are now backed into a corner. They have stuck with it this long and will continue to do so.
The subtitles in United Red Army, the ones that give the names and ages of the kids, stood out to me in this viewing of the film. In one sense it shows that there were individuals involved with this “revolutionary” movement, that each had an identity as opposed to the “extras” that Matthew mentions in The Dreamers when referring to the Cultural Revolution in China. They ground the film in reality by showing that real people actually contributed to the group; they had names (his name is Robert Paulson, anyone?) and lives that became engulfed into the movement.
The ages, however, are what stood out to me the most. Many of them are our age; these are college kids that chose to abandon their previous life styles, even forced to once “self-critique” was placed on them, to train for revolutionary war. Their youth is oddly juxtaposed with their revolutionary actions, which makes a strange disconnect between their political motivations and how they went about training. It is hard not to see them as doing anything other than romanticizing revolution.
Along with the subtitles, the dulled color correction led me to read the film as tragedy in the mountains, which would be a much different story than if the colors were more vibrant or at least looked natural. The dullness in the first part of the film that establishes the political nature of the student protests along with the narrator is fairly common in historical films to show that this is the past. But once the film ditches the narration and objective dates, newsreels, and reenactments of the protests, the color editing does not change. What United Red Army shows is not like The Choice of Hercules with bumbling cops that end up in triumph, but a tragedy of students that wanted to do well for the world and failed miserably. This becomes clear, if not from the repeated killings of their own members, in the beginning of the Asama-Sanso sequence where they scarf their food down to a melancholy piano in the soundtrack.
The color was particularly notable at the beginning; the first few scenes are shot in a particularly muted palette, with everything appearing in shades of brown, grey, or a sort of weird dun color. Except, of course, the glowing red that is consistently present in those scenes. Symbolically simple, but effective.
Wakamatsu's choice to trace the story back much further than the 10 days around which The Choice of Hercules focuses is really fascinating. This choice greatly effects what the film is saying. Another interesting content difference between United Red Army and The Choice of Hercules is the multiple dimensions the students are given in United Red Army compared to the caricature-like policemen in The Choice of Hercules. These decisions that Wakamatsu make in United Red Army make a statement towards The Choice of Hercules that has less to do with picking sides or finding faults in the story and more to do with a critique on how the story itself is told.
United Red Army critiques the telling of The Choice of Hercules in a few ways. One of the ways is by stretching the story back far before the incident at the inn occurred. This is a huge difference that creates obvious changes in the experiences between the two films. First, it gives the characters far more depth. Even when a character we meet in the beginning of the film disappears later, the student population itself is given more depth by these introductions.
The most interesting and most complex difference between the films is the conflict and uncertainty the audience feels towards the characters. The students' cause is shown as worthwhile while their methods are far from celebrated. This is a astronomical difference compared to The Choice of Hercules where we understand thoroughly for whom we are to root. We don't think twice about who we want to succeed. In United Red Army, however, it is really unclear. The violent brutality towards one another compounded with the idealistic goals of the leaders is so bizarre and challenging to grasp that it would be difficult to make an argument that we are to be in full support of them. However, through genuine moments of kindness, bravery or intelligence, we are also not deterred from the idea of sympathizing with them. It is this complexity that makes the film far more compelling and far less fruitless than The Choice of Hercules.
Because of the depth of the characters and story as well as the conflicting reactions that are evoked by them, I believe that United Red Army is arguing that the fruitless way in which the story in The Choice of Hercules is told is more troublesome than the side it takes. While we know that Wakamatsu takes the side of the revolutionaries, it is not as clear that his film does. This is a wise move. Because it reveals a more factual and detailed depiction of the events and characters without singling out a perspective, the audience gets to choose with whom they are to sympathize and how they want to access the film. This way of telling a story is far more effective in engaging with an active audience which aligns more tightly with the ideas of the movement itself.
While initially a slog of a film, I really enjoyed United Red Army by the end. As the others have pointed out, it clearly criticizes The Choice of Hercules with the climactic final scenes taking place in the same event. There's a lot of clever use of cinematography the opposes Choice of Hercules. One thing just about all of us noticed in Hercules is how the revolutionaries are never seen in the film, aside from a few scant scenes and their punishment. The opposite is seen in United Red Army, and is used to even greater effect. Here, the revolutionaries are seemingly trapped by a force heard and never seen. In Hercules, the absence of the revolutionaries' faces absolved them of empathy from the audience. In United Red Army, the absence of authority faces increases the empathy, really driving home the idea that they are desperately clinging onto their pride in hopes that they'll change the world. There's a lot of great cinematography that makes the final scenes incredibly claustrophobic, to which the Walls of Flesh article mentions a few times with Violent Virgin, Go Go Second time Virgin, and Affairs within Walls. The same could easily be said with the scenes taking place with the URA's mountain bases as confined spaces where confrontations are heightened. As a matter of fact, I'd argue that there are parallels between the URA's authority in the camps and the unseen authority in the final scenes. Both rely heavily on emotional manipulation to coerce the revolutionaries in surrendering. Although Wakamatsu clearly sympathizes with the revolutionary movement, he is clearly highly critical of it (perhaps because he was fairly close to them?). This is evidenced in a quote from the article (not sure if it's from a film or a direct quotation of Wakamatsu) ‘‘I decided to stop dreaming. What do you gain? Fatigue, boredom, hollowness, and hatred of the security forces. I’m sick of all this mudslinging, in which we have no hope of winning.’’ This clearly shows that despite he sympathises with the movement, he recognizes the futility of it similar to the outburst Kato has at the end of the film where he points out the hypocrisy of fighting the authority around them when they couldn't confront the authority in the URA that was killing it's own members. Well, my blog post is all over the place but overall this was a fascinating film. Also, was this film scheduled to coincide with the October 21st Anti-War day in the film, or was that just a happy coincidence?
So far, we have seen two films which attempt to chronicle the majority of the history of revolutionary factions: The Baader/Meinhoff Complex and The United Red Army. Both of these films attempt to convey the history of their respective groups realistically, but each film has a separate motive. In Baader/Meinhoff, the goal was to “stop seeing them as they weren’t.” It was an expose against the myth of the RAF. The United Red Army on the other hand, was made as a reaction to The Choice of Hercules, a film which disregards the history and context of the radicals. Unlike in Germany, where figureheads of the RAF are often idolized and even parodied in fashion attire, in Japan, the history of the URA (from what I gathered from the documentary Under My Skin) is largely forgotten. So while Baader/Menhoff attempts to argue for a change to the history, United Red Army’s main goal is a remembrance of lost time. But that does not mean URA is without argument. At the beginning of the film, it says the events are factual but much of the film is also fictional. So, which parts the fiction? What words did Kôji Wakamatsu put in which characters mouths and why? Near the end of the film, when the youngest revolutionary expresses his remorse for his cowardice and says “This isn’t revolution,” it is difficult to see this as an innocent and factual quote. I believe, as a whole, the film is attempting to convince the viewers, to do what the characters in the film never could: give an authentic self-critique. Wakamatsu gives no guidelines on what a self-critique should be, but he definitely describes how it shouldn’t. The characters are blinded by fear of an oppressive authority and seem to have lost all agency in terms of what to believe. They attempt to self-critique but there seems to be no right answer. This is not a flaw in self-criticism but rather a flaw in the authority figures. I believe Wakamatsu believes that there is a way to self-critique: to reflect on what it is to be a good human, rather than a good communist.
Where Masato Harada’s “Choice of Hercules” largely eschewed the political implications of the Asama-Sanso siege in favor of delivering a straightforward police procedural film, Koji Wakamatsu plunges the audience of “United Red Army” directly into the political context in which the events took place. The main narrative thrust of the film is sandwiched by an overtly historical introduction and prologue, anchoring restaged events with historical footage and narration that presents a timeline of the escalation of student protests into militant political factions. Not only is historical footage used, but it is intercut with restaged versions of the documented events, begging further association between the actual protestors and their modern representatives while lending some authority to the film as an account of history. In order to combat what Wakamatsu thinks of as “Japan’s historical amnesia regarding the radical student movement” (Hamblin 102), the director never allows the audience to forget that the narrative they are watching is based on historical events and the characters on real people. The subtitles, as Colin mentioned, do a great deal to ground the film in the historic, particularly during the middle section when it is easy to get caught up in the interfactional drama. All of the characters’ names, ages, and factions are provided and constantly remind the audience that it was real people theorizing and suffering in the mountains. Even more effective at maintaining the film’s historicity are the freeze frames and narrations that accompany the deaths of all of the “self-critiquing” members, putting the narrative on hold in order to explain each individual’s political past leading up to their cruel deaths. Also unlike “Choice of Hercules,” Wakamatsu’s film takes a more morally ambiguous stand on the students’ politics. The police in “Choice of Hercules,” although sometimes annoying or uncooperative with each other, are portrayed as an unquestionable force of good, whereas the students involved with the United Red Army are shown to be capable of both cruelty and compassion. The actions of Mori and Nagata show how easily a political passion can be corrupted and transformed into sadistic power trip, whereas the perseverance of the remaining members in the ski lodge demonstrates genuine belief in changing the politics of Japan for the better. Despite enduring tortures at the hands of Nagata and Mori, the survivors at the lodge refuse to transfer their aggression onto their hostage and prefer instead to explain their political position and vow not to hurt her, showing the more positive side of the movement and demonstrating what Christian Storms suggests as the director’s reoccurring theme of a “sensitivity in the characters that has been damaged but somehow retained, an atmosphere of spiritual transcendence by living through these horrible nightmares” (184). While the characters are far from morally impeccable, Wakamatsu shows a genuine appreciation for their efforts and the change they wished to usher in.
One can infer from Chris Desjardin’s article that Koji Wakamatsu’s United Red Army (2007) remains a unique departure in the director’s career given he did not was not in tune with other contemporary Japanese New Wave filmmakers who worked for major film studies Nikkatsu, but instead, Wakamatsu started in pornography which asserts himself already as a “fringe filmmaker.” Regardless, United Red Army is very much s a major studio effort, with a budget and scope that clearly surpasses The Choice of Hercules (2002). Wakamatsu’s actual involvement with Adachi and other members of the Red Army Faction adds credibility to the film, but ultimately the film does not try to conceal the fact that it is largely a fictional retelling of the events. Aside from the opening disclaimer stating, “some fiction has been incorporated,” the discrepancy between reality and fiction is clearly marked through black–and–white archival documentary footage and title cards describing particular events “the truth” while all other, mostly color, footage exist as “fictional.” In this way, unlike The Choice of Hercules, a viewer supposedly needs not to rely on outside information to determine this discrepancy. Sarah Hamblin’s United Red Army review claims that the film was partly a response to The Choice of Hercules focusing on the side of the Red Army Faction instead of the police and suggests that it attempts to act more as an “art picture” than a Hollywood narrative as the film does not resort to “Hollywood style–action.” This claim seems to pose how narrative works under time constraints for if United Red Army was only two–hours or less, I can only imagine the film would most like The Choice of Hercules in terms of drama and entertainment, it would probably be less of a “historical document” as Hamblin calls it. Long–duration films (or as some pejoratively call “epics”) carry their own expectations that suggest they are carrying more information than just narrative storytelling, especially if the film was not produced in Hollywood.
"United Red Army is very much s a major studio effort, with a budget and scope that clearly surpasses The Choice of Hercules (2002)" That's actually not the case. He made this with very little money. The lodge that gets destroyed was KW's OWN!
One thing that United Red Army (2007) covers and that is put on the forefront of their revolutionary fight is the importance of self-reflection. This issue is something that has been ignored for the most part by most of the other revolutionary films that we have watched this semester. This issue is brought forward one the revolutionaries go into the mountains in an attempt to militarize themselves. While up there, the want to be revolutionary soldiers are constantly forced to reflect on why they are there. If they spout off revolutionary phrases as their reason for being there, they are yelled at and punished. They are supposed to have a personal stake in the matter.
This is a completely different viewpoint than the other films that we have watched because there is praise and acceptance for repeating to catch phrases of the movement. This personal stake is enforced by the willingness to militarize, which was really only seen in The Baader-Meinhof Complex. The difference between the German RAF and the Japanese RAF, as they are represented in these respective films, is that the Japanese RAF wanted to be there. We are shown Baader not wanting to really have to go through the training in order to make the transition to a militant group. He instead just wants to kill people as quickly as he can. The Japanese group, however, is looking for a sustained resistance. They see it as a war that they can fight and win as opposed to just blowing up buildings and shooting people as they see fit. This harkens back to the personal belief aspect. In order to sustain a movement people must really believe in a cause, not just get caught up in a movement.
I also found myself questioning how significant the idea of “self-critique” was in United Red Army, especially in comparison to the other films we have seen. As Oliver pointed out, the leaders of the group training in the mountains (Nagata and Mori) constantly ask other members of the group why they are there. In one instance, Toyama responds with the revolutionary phrases Oliver discussed, and this is when the beatings, or “self-criticisms” begin. It is interesting to me because Nagata and Mori never actually explain what the revolution exactly means to them either, but continue to exercise their dominance over the group nonetheless. They talk about “being a Communist” and trying to make the members better revolutionaries, but for what cause? What is a revolutionary for THEM? Who are they planning on fighting? What exactly are they planning to do once “training” is over?
Perhaps the actual URA had no real answers to these questions either. That’s why I think the choice of Wakamatsu to focus so much on the training period is his way of showing how committed certain individuals were to fight (whether against the schools, government, capitalism, etc.), but how little they were actually able to accomplish because of personal beliefs on how to go about it, which I believe has been a theme with all of the different groups we have studied. However, the commitment of the URA seems to go much further than other groups as Nagata and Mori descend into madness. Instead of kicking members out, they begin killing each other, something that we have not seen happen very often within the other groups. Sarah Hamblin discusses the internal trials, saying, “…victim after victim slowly dies of internal bleeding or starves or freezes to death for infractions as small as wearing makeup or failing to stop a van when told to, these executions become similarly repetitious and eventually horrifically mundane” (103). Why were Nagata and Mori (and the others) so incredibly committed to their idea of how to go about becoming a revolutionary that they would kill their own friends and fellow members? And for things so small and trivial?
At one point they accuse another member of Stalinism right before killing him, which seems ironic because of how they themselves are acting. I found myself wondering if things escalated to such a degree in the URA in Japan in comparison to other countries because of Japanese society’s focus on honor? It even made me think of kamikaze pilots flying to their deaths for something they believe in or the old Japanese samurai tradition of seppuku. United Red Army presents the internal struggles that we have witnessed in every revolutionary movement so far, but by focusing on “self-critiquing” while training in the mountains, Wakamatsu displays how quickly the hopeful ideas of change dissolved into radicalism and death.
In The Choice of Hercules (2006) we as the viewer didn't get much context when it came to the URA and what their motivations were, Sarah Hamblin suggests in her review of United Red Army(2007) that the film was made partly in response to The Choice of Hercules. The director of the film, Wakamatsu, was quoted in the review saying that "Harada’s Hollywood-style action treatment of the incident was in danger of becoming its historical record" he went on to say that "it was important to present an accurate portrayal of the events leading up to the siege". When comparing the two films it is very plain to see which one was meant to be standard Hollywood entertainment and which was intended to educate audiences.
Whereas in The Choice of Hercules we only get to see the faces of the URA members once near the end, in this film we spend three claustrophobic hours with the group and follow them through every piece of the journey. Now, I don't think we were supposed to be wholly sympathetic to the cause, I don't think that was the purpose of showing us their side. I think it was meant to educate us and show us why they were doing what they were doing, but ultimately I don't think we were meant to side with the URA.
Chris Desjardins, “Koji Wakamatsu” is a great source to help put Wakamatsu’s “United Red Army” into context. Through the reading, Wakamatsu gives a quote that I find is very specific to his style of directing. “He has the ability to depict disturbed mental states with a gritty visual eloquence” (Dejardins, 166). This small but elegant line gives a vague description, but it comes with power, passion and emotion, and these were the things Wakamatsu wanted his viewers to feel. Scenes in “United Red Army” are relatively short, and shots of the main actors seemingly consist of extreme close-ups or medium shots. Wakamatsu wants the audience to feel close with his subjects. His style is very good at keeping you interested in the characters. Introducing and killing off characters with his voiceover is very unique. This aspect gives a brief biography and builds a background for viewers to feel sympathetic. Through introducing characters himself, he invigorates the student movement each time. The film has big emphasis on building emotion. Voice level can be very high sometimes and remain that way. However, the music is consistently calm leaving me with a constant emotion of wonder, what’s going to happen? There is a variety of soft music over dramatic scenes, such as the hostage with a knife to her neck, or the group strangling the couple to death. Even conversations of topics like all out war or a personal love chat have music that is consistent with that of the rest of the film. Their self-critiquing system used by the group was cruel and very surreal. It almost gave the sense of a power struggle. It occurred to me that many of his scenes are very depressing to watch, but he passes it off by being a passive director with such little action in the shots.
United Red Army (2007) was hard to watch, not for the style of film making but for the the actual events that were portrayed in the movie. I agree with Sarah Hamblin in the fact that there is definitely a connection between violence and commitment between the URA members. That was the worst part, the blinding commitment to the cause that people were beating and killing each other because their leaders told them that it was a good punishment. But they slowly and fatally moved from self-critique to beating and torturing people to death for simple things that would seem unimportant to average people, like not parking a car at the right spot.
The choices they made during the hostage situation that was also seen in The Choice of Hercules (2002), and throughout the entire movie were really frustrating to watch. The fear that the members were feeling and the dominance of the leaders that was beat into the members; it was hard to watch sometimes. I'm not sure of her name, but one of the girls told the leaders and the rest of the members that she wanted to live (as do most people) and they all told her that she was stupid to think like that. They also told her that she needed to self-critique because she hadn't done well with helping beat other members. They tied her up after the beating and she pretty much went crazy. But the look of guilt and concern throughout the members was what caught my attention. How they knew what they had done was wrong, but they were to scared to rectify their actions.That, and the leaders were also guilty to the point that they didn't want to hear what they caused either, directly or indirectly. so they kept telling her to shut up and to stop talking.
Throughout the Hamblin critique, the one topic i thought was interesting was when she bring up that United red Army (2007) was a reponse Toasato Harada's the Choice of Hercules (2006), Hamblin quotes Wakamatsu saying its "Hollywood-style action treatment of the incident was in danger of becoming its historical record and it was important to present an accurate portrayal of the events leading up to the siege" (102). However, what is interesting about that quote is the word 'accurate' because it can mean so many things. The Choice of Hercules (2006) is an accurate film, is may also be superficial and one-sided, but it is accurate in its superficiality. Cops captured and arrested student terrorist. Wakamatsu wants to the viewer to believe that the Historical accuracy of his film is what is more important and while I believe that is true, it sturgles where the Choice of Hercules (2006) shines.
The choice of Hercules (2006) is a fluid film, but made the crucial error of only focusing on the perspective of the police and isolating the student terrorist and pure villain. That mistake influenced Wakanatsu to make this three-hour long epic, which is broken up into three parts, and while this storytelling seems to have created a more detailed representation of the student movement, it also created a very long and bleak film. There is so much violence in this film that Hamblin notes that “As victim after victim slowly dies of internal bleeding or starves or freezes to death for infractions as small as wearing makeup or failing to stop a van when told to, these executions become similarly repetitious and eventually horrifically mundane” (103). Over three hours that becomes one giant bummer.
My overall question is can we meet in the middle with these two films in order to get the best out of both of them. Can we get the fun energy out of Hercules with the accuracy of Army?
In reading Sarah Hamblin’s review of Wakamatus Kōji’s United Red Army ( 実録・連合赤軍 あさま山荘への道程 Jitsuroku Rengōsekigun Asama-Sansō e no Dōtei), I felt immensely validated that my interpretation of the self-critiques in the film were shared by someone else – aside from being validated in my observations from the film itself, of course. As a response to The Choice of Hercules that was released 5 years after that film, according to Hamblin’s piece, the focus on historical accuracy is one of the most obvious indicators of that separation. By stacking historical footage, factual narration, and on-screen informational blurbs, a stark contrast is made to the incredibly liberal interpretation of the Asama Sansō Incident, which is emphasized by the opening shot of figures trekking through snow that generally mirrors moments from The Choice of Hercules but is harsher and much more unclear than the resort setting of the historical fiction. Although they faded as the film moved to the more narrative segment of the militant training in the mountains, the times of narration gave a voice to the struggle that is not present in the film proper. The revolutionaries have a mostly stated agenda; in fact, they generally have several agendas that mush together to muddy the intellectual waters of the movement and represent the changes in the revolution; if anything, the agenda becomes *staged* as they move from work within the university/universities to work outside of the system.
The function of the self-critique (and the film), then, is “to reengage the process that the URA so horrifically fetishizes” (Hamblin 104). Attention is drawn even more within the film because the longest section revolves around the turmoil within the group as the core idea of self-criticism is warped beyond recognition. Members become faces and words on the screen, only achieving meaning within themselves in the narrator’s reflections upon their deaths. “No objection,” which the former students use as a type of affirmative (because fervent revolutionaries are too socially evolved to say yes, I suppose), comes to symbolize their complicity in the acts of the group, for the group, and by the group. United Red Army combats this notion by encouraging viewers to reflect and actually exercise meaningful criticism.
I just realized I forgot to include the direct translation of the Japanese title: The Road to Reality - Coalition Red Army Asama Sanso. Clearly, this demonstrates even more clearly Wakamatsu's intent to realistically portray the incident.
As Collin points out, it’s very hard to overlook the subtitles that provide the names and ages of the students involved in the revolution in United Red Army. As Sarah Hamblin explains in her essay, the subtitled opening in United Red Army is a nod to the militant documentary, but is extremely hard to understand on first watch. “[The] subtitles introduce us to dozens upon dozens of characters, many of whom appear only briefly in the film, while additional titles list dates and statistics of different protests as the voiceover simultaneously details the global culture and the complex history of the Japanese student movement.” So what we end up with is an overwhelming amount of information thrown at us all at once. The rapid-fire presentation style of all these names, dates, and places makes it hard for the audience to fully understand what’s going on and who is being introduced without pausing or rewinding the film during viewing. As Hamblin states, “the viewer is bombarded with so much information that the myriad factions, coalitions, and acronyms become impossible to keep straight.” Luckily the entire film isn’t created in such a way, only giving us short bursts of subtitles over archival footage before giving way to a more cinematic aesthetic in the dramatized recounting of the student movement.
But perhaps the chaotic nature of the film is only meant to reflect the attitude and events of the time being depicted. Wakamatsu is not afraid to use confusion and violence to get his point across, unlike other filmmakers. Look no further than The Dreamers for a comparison. The Dreamers is a poetic film, shot beautifully, utilizing both a very small cast and setting to tell its story. Due to these choices, the film lacks the sense of chaos and urgency felt around the globe during 1968. In many ways, this relates back to the debates over revolutionary filmmaking highlighted in The Baader-Meinhof Complex. Though United Red Army is somewhat chaotic and hard to follow at times, it is much more effective in its portrayal of the events surrounding 1968 than other, less revolutionary films, such as The Dreamers.
Between The Choice of Hercules and the United Red Army, the dynamic by which Japan’s revolutionary years is represented is quite divided by such different films. With the Choice of Hercules, we, as discussed in class, only get one side to the story. This limited us as outside viewers, as we are not taught the history of ’68 in standard history classes, but without a doubt, not the history of Japanese involvement beyond WWII. So, without context, the Choice of Hercules is definitely fishy, and the light-hearted elements to that film are washed away with Wakamatsu’s United Red Army. Wakamatsu’s work brought a new dynamic of student involvement that I had not thought of before, it is truly brutal, and seeing lives taken out of the routine we have now as students, and being placed in such a changing event really takes a present day viewer out of their world, and into one where every day people fought for a change, not soldiers, but students. Alec, I like what you say about Wakamatsu not being afraid to use confusion and violence, these are elements that we have read and learned about in the real life events, but hardly see in such a brutal portrayal until now. As Hamblin wrote in her review, she comments on Japan’s tendency to have historical amnesia, and this is what we blatantly saw with The Choice of Hercules. While revolution seems to always be equated with heroic, Wakamatsu changes this connotation, and his elements of confusion, and brutality are what bring his ‘hard to watch’ film to a more realistic light.
As Marco said in class, as well as Sarah Hamblin mentioned in her review of United Red Army, Koji Wakamatsu made this film in part as a response to Masato Harada’s “the Choice of Hercules”. Quoting from Sarah Hamblin’s review, “according to Wakamatsu, Harada’s Hollywood-style action treatment of the incident (the Asama Sanso siege) was in danger of becoming its historical record & it was important to present an accurate portrayal of the events leading up to the siege, especially given Japan’s historical amnesia regarding the radical student movement.” So clearly, the purpose of this film was to give a wider view of the Asama Sanso siege, as well as the radical Japanese student movement. Since the events depicted are 40 years past, most Japanese people have “historical amnesia” when it comes to this topic, and “The Choice of Hercules” was close to becoming its historical record of the Asama Sanso siege. Given this bit of information, I think Koji Wakamatsu does an excellent job of putting the events of the Asama Sanso siege in to much better context, as opposed to the “hymn to the cops” that we see in “The Choice of Hercules”. In “The choice of Hercules” we hardly ever see the radicals holed up in the lodge, we only see it from the police’s perspective. In Wakamatsu’s “United Red Army”, we are shown how exactly these groups formed from the Japanese student movement, and how they claimed to still be fighting for the same ideals as in the beginning of the revolution, yet their actions were not supporting their words. This idea is supported when one of the group member’s mother is talking to them through the loud speaker and she says “aren’t your actions contradicting your words?” another manifestation in this film of the critique against the URA, RAF etc. is Motohisa Kato, whom often is opposed to the group’s actions. Another major difference in these two films, as Aliza pointed out, is with whom we are supposed to align ourselves with. In “The Choice of Hercules” it is quite obvious- we are meant to sympathize with the Police. However in “United Red Army”, we are not quite certain who we are supposed to align ourselves with. Clearly, this film is intended to give us more sympathy towards the revolutionaries than in “The Choice of Hercules”, however it is not cut and dry that we are supposed to align with the revolutionaries. Many actions on the revolutionaries’ part are not great ones in the eyes of the viewers, and thus makes it difficult to argue that we are supposed to fully align ourselves with the revolutionaries. I don’t believe that Wakamatsu wants us to side with the revolutionaries, I think his goal is to present a more accurate depiction of the revolutionaries than in “The Choice of Hercules”, whether that depiction makes us side with the revolutionaries or not, does not matter all that much to Wakamatsu. He is simply presenting a more factual depiction of the revolutionaries in order to cure the “historical Amnesia” of the topic, and leaving the side choosing up to the viewers.
It makes sense that Koji Wakamatsu’s United Red Army was made as a response to Masato Harada’s The Choice of Hercule. In the Sarah Hamblin article there is a Wakamatsu’s quote that says, “Harada’s Hollywood-style action treatment of the incident was in danger of becoming its historical record and it was important to present an accurate portrayal of the events leading up to the siege.” Wakamatsu wants to educate, and Wakamatsu does make a completely different movie than Harada’s, but did it focus too much on the ‘historical document’ of the story to add all the dramatized parts? I can honestly say I have never seen a film like United Red Army, that tries to incorporate both bits of documentary and drama into one film. Is it a single movie, or is it two movies that have been melted into one? Where the story in the Choice of Hercules was weakened because its lack of context, the docu-drama United Red Army may have had too much background, and too much narration. I remember Oliver Assayah's saying in his film Something in the Air, that he had a hard time finding kids to play the roles in the of the student revolutionaries in 71. “In casting, I met a lot of kids who were talented but had an energy that was the energy of today, that would be unthinkable in that era.” I feel that this is a topic that can be looked at in a few of the movies we have watched this year particularly, The Dreamers, Something in the Air, United Red Army, Baader-Meinhof Complex. I personally feel that each of these movies were looking for different qualities for their casts. I wonder if you guys have noticed any differences in the casting of particularly young people in these movies. Does anyone get it right?
Upon watching this film, I found myself notably charged and somewhat torn. Admirable it is for Wakamatsu to depict the events during the URA in the mountain hideouts with such excruciating dedication to the truth, but it makes for one unpleasant viewing experience. With that surely being his intention, Wakamatsu succeeds with flying colors. As mentioned in Sarah Hamblin's review, these events are even not particularly cinematic, I felt that this choice emphasizes ugliness of the URA's actions by the nature of not prettying it up. The plainness of its depiction made me squirm as I watched increasingly pointless deaths one after another.
A film that reminds me of this is Four Lions(2010) by Christopher Morris. Both films peel back the layers of the mythos behind the people of the movement to reveal that often these people driven to extremism are found to be a mixture of lonely, sad, and confused. Much counter to the fiery, passion filled individuals of Baader-Meinhof Complex, Something in the Air, or even The Dreamers. Cleverly the film eases us to this understanding by carefully charting the history of each major figure in the movements. It does well to show how each action is a reaction to another as protest create police action, police action creates recruits, recruits create protest. The cycle continues until eventually it is reduced to possibly, the saddest, loneliest, and most confused member Takao Himori. It is painfully ironic how Takao Himori's own extremism is born from his own self loathing and becomes what drives him to his deeply misguided 'self-critique'. This man and his story gives perhaps the best explanation to ultimate failure of The Third Generation and how the corrupted ideals of a few can easily cause a movement to devour itself. I agree with Sarah Hamblin when she finds Himori's self critique to represent Wakamatsu's deeper criticism of the failure of the movement. However, where she believes it is up to the audience to define the nature of this critique, I must disagree as I found it bleakly reaching an inevitability. As with The Third Generation and Four Lions, those who are further from the inception of the movement are doomed to fail.
Perhaps I worded my last point wrong. When I say I disagree, I disagree with the implication of its open interpretation. I know that is a contradiction, but it seems to be on the more explicit end of the spectrum than what Sarah Hamblin argues.
Concluding her review, Sarah Hamblin summarizes it by stating how “United Red Army [2007] explores this tension between commitment and violence, asking how we foster and maintain revolutionary political commitment without it dissolving into mindless cruelty or the ineffectual logic of martyrdom,” (104). She proceeds to say the film leaves the audience with the choice to observe the failures and raptures that led to the URA ‘s destruction. Finally, she suggests the film gives the audience room to self-critique its way into “act[ing] anew in meaningful ways” (104).
ReplyDeleteWhile I see how the emphasis stressed through the URA’s training in self-criticism could lead to that conclusion, the interview with Kôji Wakamatsu denies this possibility. As he says, “[t]hese former activists who sold out and sit around and talk about the good old days piss me off” (187). His philosophy is not a mellow. It seems unlikely he would allow a sense of passivity to the end message of his film. Through the interview there is still a sharp tonality of rebellion of non-conformism.
His own involvement with the student movements give logic to United Red Army being a response to The Choice of Hercules (2006) through choice to do a mockery of the imposition of points of view. For example, during their family member’s pleading, the close-up of Kunio’s face infiltrates his display of emotion which denies him the possibility to hide his tears and emotional struggle. Even more so, the camera forces the audience to see all of their reactions—even the most minuscule ones—to counteract their complete lack in The Choice of Hercules.
The film takes time to narrate the complicated history of the student movement, the creation of leftist groups, the fragmenting of those groups, their radicalization, and ultimately, their self-destruction. Yes, part of the motivation might be, as Hamblin observes, a direct attempt to counteract “Japan’s historical amnesia regarding the radical student movement,” (102). The documentary segments offer an unforgiving amount of historical and factual information regarding dates, names, groups, etc., but in Wakamatsu’s way, the most valid and truthful lines are not those pulled from a history book, but instead, those addressed through the characters—most significantly, the characters through which Wakamatsu is represented.
As he mentioned during the interview, “I become the main character as much as possible…If you lose your childish nature, you lose your true emotions,” (184). In United Red Army, I believe this is best represented through the actions and words of the youngest character, Motohisa Kato. His cries for the executed members, his silent opposition, his whispered truths of “this isn’t revolution,” and his condemnation of the groups amnesia and absolution of their actions and lack of courage exemplifies at once the childish, ineffective, powerless, and lost nature of the group, as well as Wakamatsu’s own critical appraisal of any set structure.
This is best highlighted in the conclusion of his interview where he says it doesn’t matter if the radicalized group gains power. It is always important to have and pay attention to the opposition—I think this was his real purpose of the extended view of self-criticism and its showcase in the film. It wasn’t to encourage the audience to use it in historical examination, as Hamblin suggested, but instead to show the quick dictatorial hierarchy deriving from the formation of the institution—any institution—and the vital need to always find the courage to break away and fight it, as Motohisa did at the very end.
Really excellent!
DeleteIf Masato Harada’s “The Choice of Hercules” was a “hymn to the cops” (as quoted by Sarah Hamblin in her review of Koji Wakamatsu’s “United Red Army”), then Wakamatsu’s “United Red Army” isn’t necessarily a hymn to the Red Army members, but rather a bleak and dragging look at the “meaningless” use of self-critique by the RLF that eventually led to their downfall.
ReplyDeleteIf Wakamatsu’s worry was that Harada’s take on the Asama Sanso siege in
“The Choice of Hercules” “was in danger of becoming its historical record”, than through showing us what happened on the inside of the lodge, he allows us not necessarily to sympathize with the revolutionaries (although you could if you really wanted to), but at least to give us a sense of their final moments of clinging on to this idea that they are still “fighting for the revolution to end war and inequality in the world”. This idea that they are still fighting for what they were in the beginning is squashed quickly when Masakuni’s mother asks ““but aren’t your actions contradicting your words?”.
But the group’s delusions of grandeur began long before the siege of the lodge. As soon as the two revolutionary groups in the film formed to begin military training on the mountain, that’s when it all went downhill (even though they were uphill, HA! Just kidding I’m not funny). It’s pure irony that although Mori foams at the mouth for everyone else to critique, he can’t even critique himself (and when he does, as in when he steals Nagata, it’s extremely brief) or accept responsibility for the death of Ozaki, saying instead that it was a “death by defeatism”. These tactics of self-torture are truly “meaningless”, and the film’s muted, at times unsaturated colors show just how horrible the conditions were if you belonged to the URA.
Taking into account that Wakamatsu was there during these revolutionary events, his film can be interpreted as a self-critique of the actions of the URA, RLF, etc. by one of its own members, therefore making the film’s bleak look not on account of political propaganda, but on account of telling the story as it was meant to be told: With a “gritty visual eloquence”, and truth, that only Wakamatsu could provide
Nicely done. Just one clarification: KW wasn't actually involved in the violence; he wasn't with the URA in the mountains. But he was friends with them. He somewhere said (wasn't it in one of the docs on Japan & 68) that he turned to filmmaking so that he would not kill a cop?
DeleteHe did, yeah; it was the second documentary involving Japan, the one with the dancer.
DeleteAfter I think it was Toyama’s death, a montage of flashbacks of her and her friends participation in the first revolutionary movements in the early 60s reveal the promising beginning of the revolution that has now turned into a horror movie with two tyrannical leaders seemingly killing off their followers one by one. Wakamatsu’s film seems to support the early revolutionary acts, intercutting documentary footage with restaged fictional scenes with rock music playing behind them and inter-titles revealing the certain events the revolutionary groups participated in and foregrounding the police arrests. However, when the URA goes off to a mountain house in the country, the group’s efforts turn on its members instead of the state. In Sarah Hamblin’s review of “United Red Army,” she concludes it is during this segment of the film where, “the film’s primary focus emerges as the utter failure of the revolutionary movement to capitalize on this energy and realize its goal” (103). The leaders Nagata and Mori create a setting with as much or more paranoia, control, and fear as the state they are fighting against. Nagata in particular becomes a big brother like character. Every once and a while some characters will be speaking about their actual thoughts on self criticism. The scene plays out as if they are alone, then Nagata’s intent gaze is revealed to us, as if we are only seeing the scene because she is witnessing it. She seems to see every act of dissent the characters partake in, as if she is all seeing and knowing. In the mountains, the URA seems to become the submissive population they are so critical of. Many members are shown to object to their comrades being executed, but they all remain inactive to stop it. As they see the Japanese population as complicit in the states power over them because of their mindless submission, they seem to become equally submissive as the revolution they were involved in loses its sight. This realization is dramatically shown near the end of the film through close ups when one of the members berates each person including himself of their failure to step in during their comrades executions.
ReplyDeleteOnce Nagata and Mori are arrested and the group is on the run they become more sympathetic. Unlike “The Choice of Hercules,” we spend the entire time with the revolutionaries instead of the cops. He isn’t making a detective action genre film. Hamblin argues this scene is presented as “ridiculous” with “odds so overwhelming that it could only result in capture or death” (103-104). “United Red Army” is concerned with the tragic conclusion of the URA’s actions, not the successful police leadership of one man. They are individuals instead of faceless kidnappers with snipers. Wakamatsu does not justify their actions. In fact, their hostage is easily the most sympathetic, shown as an innocent woman thrust into a situation she had nothing to do with. She is given the most close ups, and the subtle background music playing clearly positions the audience on her side. The film presents the revolutionaries as people who have dedicated themselves to a revolutionary group that has already turned on itself and are now backed into a corner. They have stuck with it this long and will continue to do so.
Good.
DeleteThe subtitles in United Red Army, the ones that give the names and ages of the kids, stood out to me in this viewing of the film. In one sense it shows that there were individuals involved with this “revolutionary” movement, that each had an identity as opposed to the “extras” that Matthew mentions in The Dreamers when referring to the Cultural Revolution in China. They ground the film in reality by showing that real people actually contributed to the group; they had names (his name is Robert Paulson, anyone?) and lives that became engulfed into the movement.
ReplyDeleteThe ages, however, are what stood out to me the most. Many of them are our age; these are college kids that chose to abandon their previous life styles, even forced to once “self-critique” was placed on them, to train for revolutionary war. Their youth is oddly juxtaposed with their revolutionary actions, which makes a strange disconnect between their political motivations and how they went about training. It is hard not to see them as doing anything other than romanticizing revolution.
Along with the subtitles, the dulled color correction led me to read the film as tragedy in the mountains, which would be a much different story than if the colors were more vibrant or at least looked natural. The dullness in the first part of the film that establishes the political nature of the student protests along with the narrator is fairly common in historical films to show that this is the past. But once the film ditches the narration and objective dates, newsreels, and reenactments of the protests, the color editing does not change. What United Red Army shows is not like The Choice of Hercules with bumbling cops that end up in triumph, but a tragedy of students that wanted to do well for the world and failed miserably. This becomes clear, if not from the repeated killings of their own members, in the beginning of the Asama-Sanso sequence where they scarf their food down to a melancholy piano in the soundtrack.
The color was particularly notable at the beginning; the first few scenes are shot in a particularly muted palette, with everything appearing in shades of brown, grey, or a sort of weird dun color. Except, of course, the glowing red that is consistently present in those scenes. Symbolically simple, but effective.
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ReplyDeleteWakamatsu's choice to trace the story back much further than the 10 days around which The Choice of Hercules focuses is really fascinating. This choice greatly effects what the film is saying. Another interesting content difference between United Red Army and The Choice of Hercules is the multiple dimensions the students are given in United Red Army compared to the caricature-like policemen in The Choice of Hercules. These decisions that Wakamatsu make in United Red Army make a statement towards The Choice of Hercules that has less to do with picking sides or finding faults in the story and more to do with a critique on how the story itself is told.
ReplyDeleteUnited Red Army critiques the telling of The Choice of Hercules in a few ways. One of the ways is by stretching the story back far before the incident at the inn occurred. This is a huge difference that creates obvious changes in the experiences between the two films. First, it gives the characters far more depth. Even when a character we meet in the beginning of the film disappears later, the student population itself is given more depth by these introductions.
The most interesting and most complex difference between the films is the conflict and uncertainty the audience feels towards the characters. The students' cause is shown as worthwhile while their methods are far from celebrated. This is a astronomical difference compared to The Choice of Hercules where we understand thoroughly for whom we are to root. We don't think twice about who we want to succeed. In United Red Army, however, it is really unclear. The violent brutality towards one another compounded with the idealistic goals of the leaders is so bizarre and challenging to grasp that it would be difficult to make an argument that we are to be in full support of them. However, through genuine moments of kindness, bravery or intelligence, we are also not deterred from the idea of sympathizing with them. It is this complexity that makes the film far more compelling and far less fruitless than The Choice of Hercules.
Because of the depth of the characters and story as well as the conflicting reactions that are evoked by them, I believe that United Red Army is arguing that the fruitless way in which the story in The Choice of Hercules is told is more troublesome than the side it takes. While we know that Wakamatsu takes the side of the revolutionaries, it is not as clear that his film does. This is a wise move. Because it reveals a more factual and detailed depiction of the events and characters without singling out a perspective, the audience gets to choose with whom they are to sympathize and how they want to access the film. This way of telling a story is far more effective in engaging with an active audience which aligns more tightly with the ideas of the movement itself.
While initially a slog of a film, I really enjoyed United Red Army by the end. As the others have pointed out, it clearly criticizes The Choice of Hercules with the climactic final scenes taking place in the same event. There's a lot of clever use of cinematography the opposes Choice of Hercules. One thing just about all of us noticed in Hercules is how the revolutionaries are never seen in the film, aside from a few scant scenes and their punishment. The opposite is seen in United Red Army, and is used to even greater effect. Here, the revolutionaries are seemingly trapped by a force heard and never seen. In Hercules, the absence of the revolutionaries' faces absolved them of empathy from the audience. In United Red Army, the absence of authority faces increases the empathy, really driving home the idea that they are desperately clinging onto their pride in hopes that they'll change the world.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of great cinematography that makes the final scenes incredibly claustrophobic, to which the Walls of Flesh article mentions a few times with Violent Virgin, Go Go Second time Virgin, and Affairs within Walls. The same could easily be said with the scenes taking place with the URA's mountain bases as confined spaces where confrontations are heightened. As a matter of fact, I'd argue that there are parallels between the URA's authority in the camps and the unseen authority in the final scenes. Both rely heavily on emotional manipulation to coerce the revolutionaries in surrendering. Although Wakamatsu clearly sympathizes with the revolutionary movement, he is clearly highly critical of it (perhaps because he was fairly close to them?). This is evidenced in a quote from the article (not sure if it's from a film or a direct quotation of Wakamatsu) ‘‘I decided to stop dreaming. What do you
gain? Fatigue, boredom, hollowness, and hatred of the
security forces. I’m sick of all this mudslinging, in which
we have no hope of winning.’’ This clearly shows that despite he sympathises with the movement, he recognizes the futility of it similar to the outburst Kato has at the end of the film where he points out the hypocrisy of fighting the authority around them when they couldn't confront the authority in the URA that was killing it's own members.
Well, my blog post is all over the place but overall this was a fascinating film. Also, was this film scheduled to coincide with the October 21st Anti-War day in the film, or was that just a happy coincidence?
Hah--happy coincidence
DeleteSo far, we have seen two films which attempt to chronicle the majority of the history of revolutionary factions: The Baader/Meinhoff Complex and The United Red Army. Both of these films attempt to convey the history of their respective groups realistically, but each film has a separate motive. In Baader/Meinhoff, the goal was to “stop seeing them as they weren’t.” It was an expose against the myth of the RAF. The United Red Army on the other hand, was made as a reaction to The Choice of Hercules, a film which disregards the history and context of the radicals. Unlike in Germany, where figureheads of the RAF are often idolized and even parodied in fashion attire, in Japan, the history of the URA (from what I gathered from the documentary Under My Skin) is largely forgotten. So while Baader/Menhoff attempts to argue for a change to the history, United Red Army’s main goal is a remembrance of lost time.
ReplyDeleteBut that does not mean URA is without argument. At the beginning of the film, it says the events are factual but much of the film is also fictional. So, which parts the fiction? What words did Kôji Wakamatsu put in which characters mouths and why? Near the end of the film, when the youngest revolutionary expresses his remorse for his cowardice and says “This isn’t revolution,” it is difficult to see this as an innocent and factual quote. I believe, as a whole, the film is attempting to convince the viewers, to do what the characters in the film never could: give an authentic self-critique. Wakamatsu gives no guidelines on what a self-critique should be, but he definitely describes how it shouldn’t. The characters are blinded by fear of an oppressive authority and seem to have lost all agency in terms of what to believe. They attempt to self-critique but there seems to be no right answer. This is not a flaw in self-criticism but rather a flaw in the authority figures. I believe Wakamatsu believes that there is a way to self-critique: to reflect on what it is to be a good human, rather than a good communist.
Where Masato Harada’s “Choice of Hercules” largely eschewed the political implications of the Asama-Sanso siege in favor of delivering a straightforward police procedural film, Koji Wakamatsu plunges the audience of “United Red Army” directly into the political context in which the events took place. The main narrative thrust of the film is sandwiched by an overtly historical introduction and prologue, anchoring restaged events with historical footage and narration that presents a timeline of the escalation of student protests into militant political factions. Not only is historical footage used, but it is intercut with restaged versions of the documented events, begging further association between the actual protestors and their modern representatives while lending some authority to the film as an account of history.
ReplyDeleteIn order to combat what Wakamatsu thinks of as “Japan’s historical amnesia regarding the radical student movement” (Hamblin 102), the director never allows the audience to forget that the narrative they are watching is based on historical events and the characters on real people. The subtitles, as Colin mentioned, do a great deal to ground the film in the historic, particularly during the middle section when it is easy to get caught up in the interfactional drama. All of the characters’ names, ages, and factions are provided and constantly remind the audience that it was real people theorizing and suffering in the mountains. Even more effective at maintaining the film’s historicity are the freeze frames and narrations that accompany the deaths of all of the “self-critiquing” members, putting the narrative on hold in order to explain each individual’s political past leading up to their cruel deaths.
Also unlike “Choice of Hercules,” Wakamatsu’s film takes a more morally ambiguous stand on the students’ politics. The police in “Choice of Hercules,” although sometimes annoying or uncooperative with each other, are portrayed as an unquestionable force of good, whereas the students involved with the United Red Army are shown to be capable of both cruelty and compassion. The actions of Mori and Nagata show how easily a political passion can be corrupted and transformed into sadistic power trip, whereas the perseverance of the remaining members in the ski lodge demonstrates genuine belief in changing the politics of Japan for the better. Despite enduring tortures at the hands of Nagata and Mori, the survivors at the lodge refuse to transfer their aggression onto their hostage and prefer instead to explain their political position and vow not to hurt her, showing the more positive side of the movement and demonstrating what Christian Storms suggests as the director’s reoccurring theme of a “sensitivity in the characters that has been damaged but somehow retained, an atmosphere of spiritual transcendence by living through these horrible nightmares” (184). While the characters are far from morally impeccable, Wakamatsu shows a genuine appreciation for their efforts and the change they wished to usher in.
One can infer from Chris Desjardin’s article that Koji Wakamatsu’s United Red Army (2007) remains a unique departure in the director’s career given he did not was not in tune with other contemporary Japanese New Wave filmmakers who worked for major film studies Nikkatsu, but instead, Wakamatsu started in pornography which asserts himself already as a “fringe filmmaker.” Regardless, United Red Army is very much s a major studio effort, with a budget and scope that clearly surpasses The Choice of Hercules (2002). Wakamatsu’s actual involvement with Adachi and other members of the Red Army Faction adds credibility to the film, but ultimately the film does not try to conceal the fact that it is largely a fictional retelling of the events. Aside from the opening disclaimer stating, “some fiction has been incorporated,” the discrepancy between reality and fiction is clearly marked through black–and–white archival documentary footage and title cards describing particular events “the truth” while all other, mostly color, footage exist as “fictional.” In this way, unlike The Choice of Hercules, a viewer supposedly needs not to rely on outside information to determine this discrepancy.
ReplyDeleteSarah Hamblin’s United Red Army review claims that the film was partly a response to The Choice of Hercules focusing on the side of the Red Army Faction instead of the police and suggests that it attempts to act more as an “art picture” than a Hollywood narrative as the film does not resort to “Hollywood style–action.” This claim seems to pose how narrative works under time constraints for if United Red Army was only two–hours or less, I can only imagine the film would most like The Choice of Hercules in terms of drama and entertainment, it would probably be less of a “historical document” as Hamblin calls it. Long–duration films (or as some pejoratively call “epics”) carry their own expectations that suggest they are carrying more information than just narrative storytelling, especially if the film was not produced in Hollywood.
"United Red Army is very much s a major studio effort, with a budget and scope that clearly surpasses The Choice of Hercules (2002)" That's actually not the case. He made this with very little money. The lodge that gets destroyed was KW's OWN!
DeleteOne thing that United Red Army (2007) covers and that is put on the forefront of their revolutionary fight is the importance of self-reflection. This issue is something that has been ignored for the most part by most of the other revolutionary films that we have watched this semester. This issue is brought forward one the revolutionaries go into the mountains in an attempt to militarize themselves. While up there, the want to be revolutionary soldiers are constantly forced to reflect on why they are there. If they spout off revolutionary phrases as their reason for being there, they are yelled at and punished. They are supposed to have a personal stake in the matter.
ReplyDeleteThis is a completely different viewpoint than the other films that we have watched because there is praise and acceptance for repeating to catch phrases of the movement. This personal stake is enforced by the willingness to militarize, which was really only seen in The Baader-Meinhof Complex. The difference between the German RAF and the Japanese RAF, as they are represented in these respective films, is that the Japanese RAF wanted to be there. We are shown Baader not wanting to really have to go through the training in order to make the transition to a militant group. He instead just wants to kill people as quickly as he can. The Japanese group, however, is looking for a sustained resistance. They see it as a war that they can fight and win as opposed to just blowing up buildings and shooting people as they see fit. This harkens back to the personal belief aspect. In order to sustain a movement people must really believe in a cause, not just get caught up in a movement.
I also found myself questioning how significant the idea of “self-critique” was in United Red Army, especially in comparison to the other films we have seen. As Oliver pointed out, the leaders of the group training in the mountains (Nagata and Mori) constantly ask other members of the group why they are there. In one instance, Toyama responds with the revolutionary phrases Oliver discussed, and this is when the beatings, or “self-criticisms” begin. It is interesting to me because Nagata and Mori never actually explain what the revolution exactly means to them either, but continue to exercise their dominance over the group nonetheless. They talk about “being a Communist” and trying to make the members better revolutionaries, but for what cause? What is a revolutionary for THEM? Who are they planning on fighting? What exactly are they planning to do once “training” is over?
DeletePerhaps the actual URA had no real answers to these questions either. That’s why I think the choice of Wakamatsu to focus so much on the training period is his way of showing how committed certain individuals were to fight (whether against the schools, government, capitalism, etc.), but how little they were actually able to accomplish because of personal beliefs on how to go about it, which I believe has been a theme with all of the different groups we have studied. However, the commitment of the URA seems to go much further than other groups as Nagata and Mori descend into madness. Instead of kicking members out, they begin killing each other, something that we have not seen happen very often within the other groups. Sarah Hamblin discusses the internal trials, saying, “…victim after victim slowly dies of internal bleeding or starves or freezes to death for infractions as small as wearing makeup or failing to stop a van when told to, these executions become similarly repetitious and eventually horrifically mundane” (103). Why were Nagata and Mori (and the others) so incredibly committed to their idea of how to go about becoming a revolutionary that they would kill their own friends and fellow members? And for things so small and trivial?
At one point they accuse another member of Stalinism right before killing him, which seems ironic because of how they themselves are acting. I found myself wondering if things escalated to such a degree in the URA in Japan in comparison to other countries because of Japanese society’s focus on honor? It even made me think of kamikaze pilots flying to their deaths for something they believe in or the old Japanese samurai tradition of seppuku. United Red Army presents the internal struggles that we have witnessed in every revolutionary movement so far, but by focusing on “self-critiquing” while training in the mountains, Wakamatsu displays how quickly the hopeful ideas of change dissolved into radicalism and death.
In The Choice of Hercules (2006) we as the viewer didn't get much context when it came to the URA and what their motivations were, Sarah Hamblin suggests in her review of United Red Army(2007) that the film was made partly in response to The Choice of Hercules. The director of the film, Wakamatsu, was quoted in the review saying that "Harada’s Hollywood-style action
ReplyDeletetreatment of the incident was in danger of becoming its historical record" he went on to say that "it was important to present an accurate portrayal of the events leading up to the siege". When comparing the two films it is very plain to see which one was meant to be standard Hollywood entertainment and which was intended to educate audiences.
Whereas in The Choice of Hercules we only get to see the faces of the URA members once near the end, in this film we spend three claustrophobic hours with the group and follow them through every piece of the journey. Now, I don't think we were supposed to be wholly sympathetic to the cause, I don't think that was the purpose of showing us their side. I think it was meant to educate us and show us why they were doing what they were doing, but ultimately I don't think we were meant to side with the URA.
Chris Desjardins, “Koji Wakamatsu” is a great source to help put Wakamatsu’s “United Red Army” into context. Through the reading, Wakamatsu gives a quote that I find is very specific to his style of directing. “He has the ability to depict disturbed mental states with a gritty visual eloquence” (Dejardins, 166). This small but elegant line gives a vague description, but it comes with power, passion and emotion, and these were the things Wakamatsu wanted his viewers to feel. Scenes in “United Red Army” are relatively short, and shots of the main actors seemingly consist of extreme close-ups or medium shots. Wakamatsu wants the audience to feel close with his subjects. His style is very good at keeping you interested in the characters. Introducing and killing off characters with his voiceover is very unique. This aspect gives a brief biography and builds a background for viewers to feel sympathetic. Through introducing characters himself, he invigorates the student movement each time.
ReplyDeleteThe film has big emphasis on building emotion. Voice level can be very high sometimes and remain that way. However, the music is consistently calm leaving me with a constant emotion of wonder, what’s going to happen? There is a variety of soft music over dramatic scenes, such as the hostage with a knife to her neck, or the group strangling the couple to death. Even conversations of topics like all out war or a personal love chat have music that is consistent with that of the rest of the film. Their self-critiquing system used by the group was cruel and very surreal. It almost gave the sense of a power struggle. It occurred to me that many of his scenes are very depressing to watch, but he passes it off by being a passive director with such little action in the shots.
United Red Army (2007) was hard to watch, not for the style of film making but for the the actual events that were portrayed in the movie. I agree with Sarah Hamblin in the fact that there is definitely a connection between violence and commitment between the URA members. That was the worst part, the blinding commitment to the cause that people were beating and killing each other because their leaders told them that it was a good punishment. But they slowly and fatally moved from self-critique to beating and torturing people to death for simple things that would seem unimportant to average people, like not parking a car at the right spot.
ReplyDeleteThe choices they made during the hostage situation that was also seen in The Choice of Hercules (2002), and throughout the entire movie were really frustrating to watch. The fear that the members were feeling and the dominance of the leaders that was beat into the members; it was hard to watch sometimes. I'm not sure of her name, but one of the girls told the leaders and the rest of the members that she wanted to live (as do most people) and they all told her that she was stupid to think like that. They also told her that she needed to self-critique because she hadn't done well with helping beat other members. They tied her up after the beating and she pretty much went crazy. But the look of guilt and concern throughout the members was what caught my attention. How they knew what they had done was wrong, but they were to scared to rectify their actions.That, and the leaders were also guilty to the point that they didn't want to hear what they caused either, directly or indirectly. so they kept telling her to shut up and to stop talking.
Throughout the Hamblin critique, the one topic i thought was interesting was when she bring up that United red Army (2007) was a reponse Toasato Harada's the Choice of Hercules (2006), Hamblin quotes Wakamatsu saying its "Hollywood-style action treatment of the incident was in danger of becoming its historical record and it was important to present an accurate portrayal of the events leading up to the siege" (102). However, what is interesting about that quote is the word 'accurate' because it can mean so many things. The Choice of Hercules (2006) is an accurate film, is may also be superficial and one-sided, but it is accurate in its superficiality. Cops captured and arrested student terrorist. Wakamatsu wants to the viewer to believe that the Historical accuracy of his film is what is more important and while I believe that is true, it sturgles where the Choice of Hercules (2006) shines.
ReplyDeleteThe choice of Hercules (2006) is a fluid film, but made the crucial error of only focusing on the perspective of the police and isolating the student terrorist and pure villain. That mistake influenced Wakanatsu to make this three-hour long epic, which is broken up into three parts, and while this storytelling seems to have created a more detailed representation of the student movement, it also created a very long and bleak film. There is so much violence in this film that Hamblin notes that “As victim after victim slowly dies of internal bleeding or starves or freezes to death for infractions as small as wearing makeup or failing to stop a van when told to, these executions become similarly repetitious and eventually horrifically mundane” (103). Over three hours that becomes one giant bummer.
My overall question is can we meet in the middle with these two films in order to get the best out of both of them. Can we get the fun energy out of Hercules with the accuracy of Army?
In reading Sarah Hamblin’s review of Wakamatus Kōji’s United Red Army ( 実録・連合赤軍 あさま山荘への道程 Jitsuroku Rengōsekigun Asama-Sansō e no Dōtei), I felt immensely validated that my interpretation of the self-critiques in the film were shared by someone else – aside from being validated in my observations from the film itself, of course. As a response to The Choice of Hercules that was released 5 years after that film, according to Hamblin’s piece, the focus on historical accuracy is one of the most obvious indicators of that separation. By stacking historical footage, factual narration, and on-screen informational blurbs, a stark contrast is made to the incredibly liberal interpretation of the Asama Sansō Incident, which is emphasized by the opening shot of figures trekking through snow that generally mirrors moments from The Choice of Hercules but is harsher and much more unclear than the resort setting of the historical fiction. Although they faded as the film moved to the more narrative segment of the militant training in the mountains, the times of narration gave a voice to the struggle that is not present in the film proper. The revolutionaries have a mostly stated agenda; in fact, they generally have several agendas that mush together to muddy the intellectual waters of the movement and represent the changes in the revolution; if anything, the agenda becomes *staged* as they move from work within the university/universities to work outside of the system.
ReplyDeleteThe function of the self-critique (and the film), then, is “to reengage the process that the URA so horrifically fetishizes” (Hamblin 104). Attention is drawn even more within the film because the longest section revolves around the turmoil within the group as the core idea of self-criticism is warped beyond recognition. Members become faces and words on the screen, only achieving meaning within themselves in the narrator’s reflections upon their deaths. “No objection,” which the former students use as a type of affirmative (because fervent revolutionaries are too socially evolved to say yes, I suppose), comes to symbolize their complicity in the acts of the group, for the group, and by the group. United Red Army combats this notion by encouraging viewers to reflect and actually exercise meaningful criticism.
I just realized I forgot to include the direct translation of the Japanese title: The Road to Reality - Coalition Red Army Asama Sanso. Clearly, this demonstrates even more clearly Wakamatsu's intent to realistically portray the incident.
DeleteAs Collin points out, it’s very hard to overlook the subtitles that provide the names and ages of the students involved in the revolution in United Red Army. As Sarah Hamblin explains in her essay, the subtitled opening in United Red Army is a nod to the militant documentary, but is extremely hard to understand on first watch. “[The] subtitles introduce us to dozens upon dozens of characters, many of whom appear only briefly in the film, while additional titles list dates and statistics of different protests as the voiceover simultaneously details the global culture and the complex history of the Japanese student movement.” So what we end up with is an overwhelming amount of information thrown at us all at once. The rapid-fire presentation style of all these names, dates, and places makes it hard for the audience to fully understand what’s going on and who is being introduced without pausing or rewinding the film during viewing. As Hamblin states, “the viewer is bombarded with so much information that the myriad factions, coalitions, and acronyms become impossible to keep straight.” Luckily the entire film isn’t created in such a way, only giving us short bursts of subtitles over archival footage before giving way to a more cinematic aesthetic in the dramatized recounting of the student movement.
ReplyDeleteBut perhaps the chaotic nature of the film is only meant to reflect the attitude and events of the time being depicted. Wakamatsu is not afraid to use confusion and violence to get his point across, unlike other filmmakers. Look no further than The Dreamers for a comparison. The Dreamers is a poetic film, shot beautifully, utilizing both a very small cast and setting to tell its story. Due to these choices, the film lacks the sense of chaos and urgency felt around the globe during 1968. In many ways, this relates back to the debates over revolutionary filmmaking highlighted in The Baader-Meinhof Complex. Though United Red Army is somewhat chaotic and hard to follow at times, it is much more effective in its portrayal of the events surrounding 1968 than other, less revolutionary films, such as The Dreamers.
Between The Choice of Hercules and the United Red Army, the dynamic by which Japan’s revolutionary years is represented is quite divided by such different films. With the Choice of Hercules, we, as discussed in class, only get one side to the story. This limited us as outside viewers, as we are not taught the history of ’68 in standard history classes, but without a doubt, not the history of Japanese involvement beyond WWII. So, without context, the Choice of Hercules is definitely fishy, and the light-hearted elements to that film are washed away with Wakamatsu’s United Red Army.
DeleteWakamatsu’s work brought a new dynamic of student involvement that I had not thought of before, it is truly brutal, and seeing lives taken out of the routine we have now as students, and being placed in such a changing event really takes a present day viewer out of their world, and into one where every day people fought for a change, not soldiers, but students. Alec, I like what you say about Wakamatsu not being afraid to use confusion and violence, these are elements that we have read and learned about in the real life events, but hardly see in such a brutal portrayal until now. As Hamblin wrote in her review, she comments on Japan’s tendency to have historical amnesia, and this is what we blatantly saw with The Choice of Hercules. While revolution seems to always be equated with heroic, Wakamatsu changes this connotation, and his elements of confusion, and brutality are what bring his ‘hard to watch’ film to a more realistic light.
As Marco said in class, as well as Sarah Hamblin mentioned in her review of United Red Army, Koji Wakamatsu made this film in part as a response to Masato Harada’s “the Choice of Hercules”.
ReplyDeleteQuoting from Sarah Hamblin’s review, “according to Wakamatsu, Harada’s Hollywood-style action treatment of the incident (the Asama Sanso siege) was in danger of becoming its historical record & it was important to present an accurate portrayal of the events leading up to the siege, especially given Japan’s historical amnesia regarding the radical student movement.” So clearly, the purpose of this film was to give a wider view of the Asama Sanso siege, as well as the radical Japanese student movement. Since the events depicted are 40 years past, most Japanese people have “historical amnesia” when it comes to this topic, and “The Choice of Hercules” was close to becoming its historical record of the Asama Sanso siege. Given this bit of information, I think Koji Wakamatsu does an excellent job of putting the events of the Asama Sanso siege in to much better context, as opposed to the “hymn to the cops” that we see in “The Choice of Hercules”.
In “The choice of Hercules” we hardly ever see the radicals holed up in the lodge, we only see it from the police’s perspective. In Wakamatsu’s “United Red Army”, we are shown how exactly these groups formed from the Japanese student movement, and how they claimed to still be fighting for the same ideals as in the beginning of the revolution, yet their actions were not supporting their words. This idea is supported when one of the group member’s mother is talking to them through the loud speaker and she says “aren’t your actions contradicting your words?” another manifestation in this film of the critique against the URA, RAF etc. is Motohisa Kato, whom often is opposed to the group’s actions. Another major difference in these two films, as Aliza pointed out, is with whom we are supposed to align ourselves with. In “The Choice of Hercules” it is quite obvious- we are meant to sympathize with the Police. However in “United Red Army”, we are not quite certain who we are supposed to align ourselves with. Clearly, this film is intended to give us more sympathy towards the revolutionaries than in “The Choice of Hercules”, however it is not cut and dry that we are supposed to align with the revolutionaries. Many actions on the revolutionaries’ part are not great ones in the eyes of the viewers, and thus makes it difficult to argue that we are supposed to fully align ourselves with the revolutionaries. I don’t believe that Wakamatsu wants us to side with the revolutionaries, I think his goal is to present a more accurate depiction of the revolutionaries than in “The Choice of Hercules”, whether that depiction makes us side with the revolutionaries or not, does not matter all that much to Wakamatsu. He is simply presenting a more factual depiction of the revolutionaries in order to cure the “historical Amnesia” of the topic, and leaving the side choosing up to the viewers.
It makes sense that Koji Wakamatsu’s United Red Army was made as a response to Masato Harada’s The Choice of Hercule. In the Sarah Hamblin article there is a Wakamatsu’s quote that says, “Harada’s Hollywood-style action treatment of the incident was in danger of becoming its historical record and it was important to present an accurate portrayal of the events leading up to the siege.” Wakamatsu wants to educate, and Wakamatsu does make a completely different movie than Harada’s, but did it focus too much on the ‘historical document’ of the story to add all the dramatized parts? I can honestly say I have never seen a film like United Red Army, that tries to incorporate both bits of documentary and drama into one film. Is it a single movie, or is it two movies that have been melted into one? Where the story in the Choice of Hercules was weakened because its lack of context, the docu-drama United Red Army may have had too much background, and too much narration.
ReplyDeleteI remember Oliver Assayah's saying in his film Something in the Air, that he had a hard time finding kids to play the roles in the of the student revolutionaries in 71. “In casting, I met a lot of kids who were talented but had an energy that was the energy of today, that would be unthinkable in that era.” I feel that this is a topic that can be looked at in a few of the movies we have watched this year particularly, The Dreamers, Something in the Air, United Red Army, Baader-Meinhof Complex. I personally feel that each of these movies were looking for different qualities for their casts. I wonder if you guys have noticed any differences in the casting of particularly young people in these movies. Does anyone get it right?
Upon watching this film, I found myself notably charged and somewhat torn. Admirable it is for Wakamatsu to depict the events during the URA in the mountain hideouts with such excruciating dedication to the truth, but it makes for one unpleasant viewing experience. With that surely being his intention, Wakamatsu succeeds with flying colors. As mentioned in Sarah Hamblin's review, these events are even not particularly cinematic, I felt that this choice emphasizes ugliness of the URA's actions by the nature of not prettying it up. The plainness of its depiction made me squirm as I watched increasingly pointless deaths one after another.
ReplyDeleteA film that reminds me of this is Four Lions(2010) by Christopher Morris. Both films peel back the layers of the mythos behind the people of the movement to reveal that often these people driven to extremism are found to be a mixture of lonely, sad, and confused. Much counter to the fiery, passion filled individuals of Baader-Meinhof Complex, Something in the Air, or even The Dreamers. Cleverly the film eases us to this understanding by carefully charting the history of each major figure in the movements. It does well to show how each action is a reaction to another as protest create police action, police action creates recruits, recruits create protest. The cycle continues until eventually it is reduced to possibly, the saddest, loneliest, and most confused member Takao Himori. It is painfully ironic how Takao Himori's own extremism is born from his own self loathing and becomes what drives him to his deeply misguided 'self-critique'. This man and his story gives perhaps the best explanation to ultimate failure of The Third Generation and how the corrupted ideals of a few can easily cause a movement to devour itself. I agree with Sarah Hamblin when she finds Himori's self critique to represent Wakamatsu's deeper criticism of the failure of the movement. However, where she believes it is up to the audience to define the nature of this critique, I must disagree as I found it bleakly reaching an inevitability. As with The Third Generation and Four Lions, those who are further from the inception of the movement are doomed to fail.
Perhaps I worded my last point wrong. When I say I disagree, I disagree with the implication of its open interpretation. I know that is a contradiction, but it seems to be on the more explicit end of the spectrum than what Sarah Hamblin argues.
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