United Red Army

While Kôji Wakamatsu never quit filmmaking, he was absent from the international scene until the 2008 release of "United Red Army". The three-hour fresco (with music by Jim O’Rourke) reconstructs a history of the revolutionary movements in Japan during the 60’s and 70’s, marking Wakamatsu’s return to political filmmaking. This unvarnished view of the upheavals strives to understand the motivations, evolutions and divisions within the groups behind them, from their genesis in the 1960’s to the dramatic hostage crisis in the Asama chalet in 1972. Wakamatsu also seeks to digest the national trauma that was caused by the fall of the Red Army, and the conflicts that their actions instilled within the once supportive Japanese populace.