Directed by Shohei Imamura • Documentary • 1967 • 130 minutes
One of the most important and complex works by two-time Palme d'Or winning director Shohei Imamura, A MAN VANISHES begins as an investigation into one of the thousands of missing persons cases that occur in Japan each year.
The film follows the case of Tadashi, a handsome businessman who has suddenly vanished. Imamura and his crew interview the man's fiancee, Yoshie, who is desperately searching for him, and the filmmaker becomes increasingly involved in her life. But the "investigation" casts a shadow of doubt over the couple's relationship, Tadashi's business ventures, his relationship with Yoshie's sister, and even the investigating film director, Imamura himself, who may not be what he seems.
"An existential essay on elusiveness of identity, a self-debunking bit of directorial mischief, a vertiginous travesty of a procedural, and an influential merging of life and fiction...A MAN VANISHES envisions life as a tangle of subjectively staged "dramas," each complementing and contradicting the other."—Slant Magazine
Directed by Kazuhiro Soda • Documentary • 2008 • 135 minutes
MENTAL is a documentary that observes the complex world of an outpatient mental health clinic Chorale Okayama in Japan, interwoven with patients, doctors, staff, volunteers, and home-helpers.
"To draw the curtain between normality and...
Directed by Shohei Imamura • Documentary • 2012 • 48 minutes
Shohei Imamura rejoins Fujita, one of the subjects of IN SEARCH OF THE UNRETURNED SOLDIERS IN THAILAND, for the former soldier's first trip home to Japan following his post-war exile.
Fujita's reunion with Japan is not a happy one. He...
Directed by Kazuhiro Soda • Documentary • With Shiro Hashimoto, Hiroko Kashiwagi, Toshio Kashiwagi • 2010 • 75 minutes
What is peace? What is coexistence? And what are the bases for them? PEACE is a visual-essay-like observational documentary, which contemplates these questions by observing the ...
