United Red Army

United Red Army is a 2007 film from Japan by Koji Wakamatsu. It chronicles, over three hours, the radical leftists of the '60s and '70s in Japan.

The film is in three acts. The first is a docu-drama style presentation that lays out how the movement started (protesting high tuition rates at Japanese colleges) and then morphed into a communist revolution. Various factions sparred with each other, and then formed one entity--the United Red Army.

This part was deadly dull, and I almost bailed on it. Watching actors argue about the inner workings of their organizations was pretty didactic, and so many characters are introduced that I couldn't keep track of them.

But I'm glad I stuck with it, because the second act was absolutely harrowing. The Army takes to the mountains, undergoing paramilitary training in a rustic cabin. They are so doctrinaire that they become obsessed with "self-critiquing"--every infraction calls for a confession and some kind of self-flagellation. The leaders (played viciously by Akie Namiki and Go Jibiki) become monstrous, forcing those found guilty of things like wearing makeup or improper cleaning of a gun, to self-critique, all in the name of the revolution. There is no way to satisfy them, though (one person tells another "You must be more revolutionary!"--how exactly does one do that?) until they are beaten and starved. One after another die, and the thing becomes like Salem during the witch trials, everyone nervous they will be accused next.

Some people intelligently escape, and the revolutionaries location is given to police. The Army heads further into the mountains, and one group takes refuge in a ski lodge near Nagano, where they take a woman hostage. This becomes the third act of the film, as they hold out as police surround them, eventually bombarding them with tear gas and water cannons.

Knowing more than a little bit about the leftist movements in the U.S. at the same time, this film had some familiar tropes, namely how these movements consume themselves, and become as tyrannical as the system they want to bring down. I was surprised to learn that the Red Army still existed all the way until the early part of this century. It reminds me of when I first got to college in 1979, and there was a small Communist organization on campus, run by one of those eternal students who was probably in his thirties, desperately trying to hold on to something that was slipping away.

This is a terrific film if you can make it through the first hour.