The seventies brought an end to the peace, love and flowers of the preceding decade. For militant groups around the world, the revolution would not be peaceful. It had to arrive through the explosive bloodletting of bombs and rifles. In Germany, the Red Army Faction ushered in a new era of radical chic and was responsible for the deaths of corporate barons and political leaders. In the U.S., the Weathermen and Symbionese Liberation Army committed their share of violent demonstrations and political kidnappings. In Japan, the paramilitary United Red Army, founded in 1971, unleashed a pernicious wave of violent in-fighting and self-suicide. Of the 29 original members, 15 survived the self-purgings and lynchings of individuals considered not sufficiently “revolutionary.”

Koji Wakamatsu, the father of Japan’s pinku eiga genre, pays tribute to the fiery rhetoric and violent history of the United Red Army in his 2007 film of the same name. Wakamatsu has long been a critic of Japan’s militarist past and America’s militarist present. The film is equally meant to be subversive and acerbic in its tone. With a score by Jim O’Rourke, the film was produced and distributed entirely by Wakamatsu himself.

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http://www.united-red-army.com/?language=en

via Abe Ahn, 3 December 2009 10:31am | 1 |