"Kokusô no hi" Director Arata Oshima A unique documentary that depicts the "indifference" of Japanese people like a horror movie [Director's Interview Vol.352]

Reason for releasing the film one year after the state funeral

Q: I think this is the first time that 10 teams have filmed at the same time in an Oshima film. How was the process of editing all that footage?

Oshima: This time, the rushes were really fun, and I didn't have much trouble editing. In the first place, we only shot on the day of the state funeral, so each location took an average of about three hours, and the total for the 10 locations was about 30 hours, so there wasn't a lot of material. The things shown were quite interesting, and there were a lot of things that were kind of lame (laughs), but I was able to edit it while thinking that it would be an interesting piece.

Q: How long does the editing take?

Oshima: It all happened so quickly. Excluding the rushes, I think editor Miyajima-san created the first draft in about a week. From there, we edited it three or four times to finish it. We received a lot of feedback at the end and made some small corrections, but the general flow was decided quite quickly.

Q: So the overall production period was pretty short. It took about three days for preparation, one day for filming, and about a month for editing.

Oshima: It took about a month in total... It sounds like I'm cutting corners when I say it like that (laughs).

“Kokusô no hi” (C) “Kokusô no hi” Production Committee

Q: Despite the speed of production, why did you decide to release the film exactly one year after the state funeral?

Oshima: At first, I thought about screening it as soon as possible, but then I thought it would be better to show it when people's memories of it were starting to fade. But two or three years is too long. I thought a year after the state funeral would be just right, and after talking to distributor Toho, they said "let's do it," so it all worked out well.

Q: Indeed, until I saw the film, I had forgotten that the state funeral was in September. I'm surprised at how vague my memory is, even though it was only a year ago. I understand that one of the aims of the film was to ask, "Will you remember in a year?"

Oshima: I was conscious of that as well. Even people who follow social affairs closely said after watching the preview, "I had no recollection at all that there was a flood in Shimizu, Shizuoka." In that sense, I think it was a good thing that I filmed Shimizu.

I wanted to cherish everydayness.