Daijiworld Media Network- Mangalore (RX)
Mangalore, Feb, 9: Sahamatha Film Society Mangalore is screening a Japanese feature film ‘Death by Hanging’ (1968) of 117 minutes, at Sahodaya Hall Balmatta, here on Sunday, February 13 at 6 pm.
The film is directed by Nagisa Ōshima, produced by Nakajima Masayuki, written by Nagisa Ōshima, music by Hayashi Hikaru, cinematography by Yoshioka Yasuhiro, Sano Takeharu and edited by Uraoka Keiichi.
Plot synopsis:
Although the complexity of death by hanging resists easy narrative description, a general plot can be outlined. A documentary like opening introduces a death chamber where an execution is about to take place. Inexplicably, the man to be executed, an ethnic Korean known only as R, survives hanging but loses his memory. The officials who witness the hanging debate how to proceed, as the law could be interpreted as forbidding execution of an individual who does not recognize their crime and its punishment. They decide that they must persuade R to accept guilt by reminding him of his crimes.
In scenes of absurd and perverse humour, the officials recreate R's first crime, the rape of a young woman. This failing, they attempt to recreate his childhood by way of performing crude racist stereotypes of Koreans held by some Japanese.
Back in the death chamber, a woman claiming to be R's ‘sister’ appears one by one to the officials. She tries to convince R that his crimes are justified by Korean nationalism against a Japanese enemy, but after failing to win him over, is herself hanged. At a drinking party to celebrate her hanging, the officials reveal their guilt-ridden, violent pasts, oblivious to R and his ‘sister’ lying on the floor amongst them.
The prosecutor invites R to leave a free man, but when he opens the door, he is driven back by an intense burst of light from outside, symbolizing the fact that as a Korean he will never be accepted by Japanese society. Finally, R admits to the crimes, but proclaims himself innocent- stating that if the officers execute him, then they are murderers as well.