A Dedicated Life

Hara Kazuo, JP 1994, 157 min, jap. original language

In 'A Dedicated Life', Hara once again portrays the writer and self-promoter Inoue Mitsuharu, an ambivalent figure of the Japanese post-war era.

Instead of focusing on his literary work, Hara is interested in the construction of his persona between lies and self-mythologization. Over the course of three years, he accompanies Inoue through workshops, implied affairs and a bout with cancer until his death. The film does not deal with the tense relationship between truth and fiction in an abstract way, but through the figure of the novelist. Hara's sense of style and his ability to use the means of narrative cinema and Nabeshima Jun's brilliant editing to unfold a multi-layered view of a complex, contradictory life, which, in comparison to his previous films, seems less drastic, almost tender. Guest: Hara Kazuo