CAMPAIGN
(選挙)
dir. Kazuhiro Soda, production associate Kiyoko Kashiwagi. 2007
120 mins. Japan.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

SUNDAY, MARCH 24 – 5 PM – KAZUHIRO SODA AND KIYOKO KASHIWAGI IN PERSON!
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
(This event is $10.)

Shot in just 12 days, Soda’s breakout observational doc (which later won him a Peabody Award) film follows Kazuhiko Yamauchi, a mild-mannered former classmate of the filmmaker’s, hand-picked by Japan’s long-entrenched Liberal Democratic Party to run for a vacant City Council seat in a Tokyo suburb. Yama-san’s lack of political experience or camera-ready charisma isn’t a total liability; his tactic of choice is “bowing to everybody, even to telephone poles”, while apparatchiks and spinmeisters from the corridors of power descend on Kawasaki to steer the process (including Japan’s former Prime Minister, the eternally suave Junichiro Koizumi.) Even though it’s all too real, CAMPAIGN one-ups the mockumentaries of Christopher Guest and Sacha Baron Cohen for its rib-bruising spotlight on the circus of local political theatre.

“Appreciation of this film hardly depends on an intimate knowledge of or interest in Japanese politics; the candidate and his prospective constituents don’t manifest much of either. Instead Mr. Soda uses tried-and-true fly-on-the-wall techniques to create a real-life satire. CAMPAIGN may invite a certain skepticism about democracy, but it will surely restore your faith in cinéma vérité.” – A.O. Scott, The New York Times