Adachi Masao

Other Name: 足立正生

Age: 85

Birthday: May 13, 1939

Nationality: Japanese

Gender: Male

Adachi’s career testifies to the opportunities which “pink” cinema provided for the expression of dissident attitudes. He had achieved notice as a student filmmaker collaborating on such creative experimental films as The Lacquered Bowl (Wan, 1961), a tragedy set in an isolated village. From 1966 to 1971, he worked for Kōji Wakamatsu’s production company, scripting some of Wakamatsu’s own works, and directing a sequence of “pink” films in which sexual titillation was secondary to political commentary advanced from a far-left perspective. Sex Play (Seiyūgi, 1968) charted the personal and ideological entanglements of two groups of leftist students, drawing imprecise parallels between sexual and political liberation. Female Student Guerrillas (Jogakusei gerira, 1969) took this theme to an extreme in its account of the violent revolutionary activities of a group of students in the mountains. The film’s portrayal of their brutalities was unenlightening, but there were suggestive moments; the opening and closing shots of Mount Fuji—the Shochiku logo—seemed not only to demolish a national symbol, but also to mock the studio system. Although rough-and-ready in execution, these films were visually inventive, revealing the influence of Jean-Luc Godard in their use of such distancing devices as onscreen text and switches from black and white to color. More mature in theme and somewhat more professional in style was Prayer of Ejaculation: 15-Year-Old Prostitute (Funshutsu kigan: 15-sai no baishunfu, 1971), an austere, affecting examination of the tragic life and suicide of a teenage prostitute, in which Adachi’s political concerns seemed more directly anchored in the realities of individual experience. The hypocrisy of the adult world was suggested by the character of the middle-aged teacher who begins an affair with the heroine, while images of tanks in the streets hinted at a wider context. Outside the “pink” arena, Adachi made AKA Serial Killer (Rakushō: Renzoku shasatsuma, 1969), an admired documentary, which recorded the locations that must have been visited by teenage serial killer Norio Nagayama before he committed his crimes. In 1971, Adachi journeyed with Wakamatsu to the Middle East, visiting territory disputed between Israel and her Arab neighbors. Their encounters with a group of Palestinian guerrillas and interviews conducted in Beirut with artists, refugees, hijackers, and others, formed the basis of a documentary, RedArmy–PFLP–DeclarationofWorldWar (Sekigun–PFLP–Sekaisensōsengen, 1971), screenings of which were restricted by pressure from the Japanese police. Adachi returned in 1975 to Beirut, where he lived for more than two decades, acting as a spokesman for the Japanese Red Army in Lebanon. In 1997, he was arrested and deported on the orders of the Lebanese government and, on returning to Japan, spent two years in prison. After his release, he documented his life in an autobiographical book, Film/Revolution (Eiga/Kakumei, 2003), and took steps to restart his directorical career. Prisoner/Terrorist (Yūheisha:Terorisuto, 2007) controversially charted the ill-treatment in Israeli captivity of Kōzō Okamoto, one of the perpetrators of the 1972 Lod Airport Massacre. This lengthy, repetitious, and rather amateurish work was not a particularly distinguished comeback: a fact that is doubly regrettable, since Adachi’s own experiences would certainly offer fascinating material for drama or documentary. (Source : A Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors).