Sanrizuka: Heta buraku

This rarely seen two-and-a-half-hour documentary by Japanese master Ogawa Shinsuke (1935-1992) is part of his seven-film series in which he documented the fight of students and local peasants against the construction of the monstrous Narita airport, against the expropriation of their farmland and their resettlement and the violent clashes between protesters and the police in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Ogawa was a political filmmaker in the true sense of the word and throughout his career which ended due to his untimely death at the age of 57, there was no doubt about where his sympathies lay and which side he was on. HETA VILLAGE can be considered the highlight of his SANRIZUKA series. It features long and detailled monologues by the farmers describing their lives and their work directly to the camera, only every now and then do we hear a question from off-camera. Given the events that followed, with the airport, of course, being built, the film and the whole series have become sort of a historical document in their own way. It also shows that the societal upheaval and unrest that shook the world at the time were particularly uncompromising and violent in Japan. (Andreas Ungerböck)