Guus Bosman

The Saturday evening screening of the Full Frame Festival last week was The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On, a 1987 movie by Japanese director Kazuo Hara. Sasha and I saw it in the Fletcher Hall in the Carolina theater.

This was truly an amazing documentary, about the search for answers in a war-crime case by Kenzo Okuzaki. As the New York Times put it in a great review (written in 1988):

"From everything the audience sees, Kenzo Okuzaki is a certifiable psychotic, though The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On never addresses this suspicion. He's the sort of fellow who writes long, crazily incoherent letters to editors, confronts people on street corners and harangues them with a loudspeaker from his van. It could be that Mr. Hara thinks the psychotic state is the only sane response to the contradictions in contemporary Japanese society."

Kenzo Okuzaki frequently uses violence and threats of violence to get the truth out the people he interviews, and at times it's easy to forget that this is an actual real-life documentary.

The movie was screened at the Full Festival in the "The Power Of Ten" series, a recommendation by film maker Michael Moore. The Q&A session with director Kazuo Hara after the movie was very interesting.

Michael Moore said he saw the movie when he was making his first major documentary, Roger and Me. While filming that he was somewhat concerned he was too harsh in his methods, but he joked that after seeing The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On he felt he was well within limits.

Mr. Hara said that after Kenzo Okuzaki came out of jail there was some talk about a follow up documentary but that Mr. Hara decided against it, because he feared that it would push Mr. Okuzaki over the border of sanity, an honorable choice.

The Full Frame Festival had a number of documentaries on the American South. The first of the two I saw was Banished, a film by Marco Williams on ethnic cleansing in the late 1800's and early 1900's in the United States.

Some of the cities where these "banishments" occurred a 100 years ago are still all-white, and Mr. Williams visits those cities with decedents of the black people that were expelled from their homes. It is dumbfounding to see the Confederate flag flying on public buildings in 2007.

The interviews with the Klan members are gripping enough ("no, I wouldn't want a black person to live next doors. I believe we have a valuable legacy to protect") but as a historian in the film points out, the real scary part is the attitude of the general population in some towns: "No Sir, the Klan is here because they feel welcome here".

See also http://www.banishedthefilm.com.

The main feature after A Son's Sacrifice was A Table In Heaven, a documentary about the Maccioni family that runs the famous La Cirque restaurant in New York.

The documentary gives a very personal insight in the life of the Maccioni family, and their work to re-open the La Cirque restaurant in a new location in New York. The film maker was able to film private moments of the family, while they are living their life -- laughing, arguing, working and discussing all the details of the new restaurant.

Uganda Rising is a documentary about the horrible impact of the wars and rebellions in Uganda and its neighboring countries since the 1970s. It shows the fate of child soldiers in the Lord's Resistance Army, a rebel army that contains thousands of children who were abducted from their families.

What is the right balance between justice and truth in a society such as in Northern Uganda? An amnesty is in place for former child soldiers, and they are forgiven for the atrocities they performed. This is pretty successful and allows children to go back to a somewhat normal life. But what do you do to the top commanders? To end the war an amnesty would help, but that is flying in the face of justice.

There is a somewhat hopeful thread in Uganda Rising, on how how children bring hope and want to learn and study.

The documentary format was old fashioned with a traditional voice over and an excessive uses of freezing frames half way interviews. However, the story told by the documentary was extremely powerful. I saw the movie right after Surfing Soweto. I must admit that I was glad I was going to see more happy documentaries after seeing 2 movies that showed the lives of children in Africa.