Dai Sako – Windows on Worlds

Small-town futility leads to tragedy when two frustrated scrapyard workers attempt to cover up a crime in Dai Sako’s dark psychological drama Drive into Night (夜を走る, Yoru wo Hashiru). Oppressive in its atmosphere, the film situates itself in a world of constant humiliations where life is cheap and reputation everything. Its heroes seek escape from their disappointing existences through consumerism and extra-marital affairs, but no longer see much of a future for themselves while even the dissatisfying present seems to be ebbing away from them.

Asked what makes his life fun, Akimoto (Tomomitsu Adachi) replies “not much”. A classic mild-mannered guy, he’s regarded as the office dogsbody and at the beck and call of his abusive manager, Hongo (Tsutomu Takahashi). When a new female sales representative, Risa (Ran Tamai), visits the yard, Hongo runs Akimoto down in front of her apologising for having such a useless employee who does nothing other than drive around all day. His sense of masculinity is also wounded by an older colleague who tries to sell he and his friend Taniguchi (Reo Tamaoki) some kind of aphrodisiac but reflects that Akimoto is too “tame” to ever make use of it, while even Taniguchi needles him about being a 40-year-old man who’s never had a girlfriend and still lives at home with his parents. In many ways he’s the classic “nice guy”, but there’s also something a little dark about him that makes it seem as if he may snap any moment. That may have been what happened when he and Taniguchi went to a bar with Risa shortly after she’d been coaxed into a works drink with Hongo. Something obviously went dreadfully wrong in the night, because Risa is soon reported missing and both Akimoto and Taniguchi begin behaving oddly.

It is true enough that both men, and many of their colleagues, also consider themselves to be on the scrap heap. Akimoto is tempted to quit his job to put distance between himself and the scrapyard but reflects that he’s unlikely to find another job even if quitting so suddenly might arouse suspicion as Taniguchi warns him. Meanwhile, he knows the yard is in trouble. They have him running round doing cold calls but returning empty handed, while office workers are constantly fielding calls about unpaid invoices. His irritation is palpable when he spots the boss, Miyake, leaving one morning soon after he arrives, loading expensive golf clubs into his fancy car. Hongo bullies him, but later says he does it out of respect because Akimoto is the only one who bothers to do his job properly. But then again even Hongo concedes that hard work gets you nowhere. Most of his paycheques go on child support and he often sleeps in his car in the car park. The only reason he’s not been fired is that he has a personal connection to Miyake.

Even so, this fairly tenuous relationship does not really explain why Miyake goes to such great lengths to protect Hongo when he becomes the prime suspect in Risa’s disappearance and is framed by Taniguchi and a guilty Akimoto. It may be in a way that he really does think of the company as a kind of family, as perhaps do the loan sharks who keep calling them after Akimoto ends up in debt having joined a weird cult encourages him to think there is nothing wrong with him and the fault is all with an unaccepting world. The cult leader tells him that he is “full of anger”, which perhaps he is. This being in the immediate aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, Akimoto is often questioned about still wearing a mask long after most people have abandoned them and part of the reason is as an attempt to hide his true self. After joining the cult he takes it off, but soon adopts another disguise in dressing in Risa’s clothes as his mental state continues to decline.

Taniguchi meanwhile makes an effort to continue with his “normal” life which includes visiting his mistress. Unbeknownst to him, his wife Misaki (Nahana) is also having an affair with the consequence that neither of them is able to fully devote themselves to their young daughter Ayano who eventually ends up in a potentially dangerous situation because of her parents’ various transgressions. Nevertheless, despite discovering that her husband may have been involved in a murder it’s Misaki who decides that he has to “protect our family” above all else. Amid all of this, Risa becomes almost literally lost before later being unceremoniously dumped like so much scrap. After framing Hongo, Taniguchi tries to convince Akimoto that Risa isn’t their problem anymore as they each struggle to hang on to the previously disappointing realities they had been so desperate to escape.

It has to be said that aside from the misogyny of its worldview, there is also an uncomfortable quality in the film’s characterisation of a shady Chinese businessman who of course knows how to get rid of bodies along with the fact his chief associate is Korean-Japanese gangster. Though the film’s strongest character may in fact be the Filipina bar hostess, Gina (Rosa Yamamoto), on whom Akimoto fixes most of his hopes who defiantly tells the cult leader that she’s happy with her life and has no reason to join his organisation, Akimoto exposes himself by telling her she’s wrong because he doesn’t see why a “foreigner”, “a woman”, who works in a “dirty” bar, could be happy or averse to being “saved” by him. Still he insists that he hasn’t “changed”, it’s the world that’s changed around him. Taniguchi later says something similar, and they each may have a point. In any case, this world is largely one of resentment and futility in which there is no release. Sako captures the drudgery of his protagonists lives with crushing naturalism but also perhaps little sympathy.

Original trailer (no subtitles)

Japan is one of the few developed nations which still maintains the death penalty, though in practice infrequently. The sentence of death is handed down almost exclusively to mass or serial murderers, child killers, or those whose crimes are judged to be of extraordinary barbarity. Unlike other nations, Japan houses those on death row not in prisons but in detention centres, denying them the rights that are afforded to regular prisoners such as visitation, exercise, and entertainment. Execution must be carried out within five days of the judgement being handed down. The prisoner themselves is informed on the morning of their death and given a choice of last meal, but their family members, legal team, and the general public are only informed once it has taken place preventing any last minute attempts for a stay.

In what would be his final screen role (and his first as a producer), Ren Osugi stars as a prison chaplain, Saeki, attempting to guide a series of Death Row prisoners towards spiritual peace as they prepare to accept their judgement. Though none of the prisoners he visits protests their innocence, some are more repentant than others and not all of them have fully internalised the fact they will never leave the facility even when no further legal attempts to commute their sentences seem to be underway. Some might say there is an element of exploitation in sending a chaplain in at all seeing as this is literally a captive audience. The crimes which lead to being on Death Row are necessarily extreme, many prisoners either have no remaining family members or have been abandoned by them out of shame, leaving them intensely lonely and devoid of human contact (not even televisions or radios are permitted). They are therefore much more interested in conversation than they are in The Bible or accepting Jesus into their hearts.

Then again, Saeki’s first visit is to a man who says nothing at all, allowing him to fill the silence with some of his own backstory which hints at a personal trauma possibly informing his desire to save the souls of these unfortunate people. Another prisoner, by contrast, is all too eager to convert but, as Saeki soon realises, is almost entirely illiterate and therefore struggling to hear the word of God through being unable to read. Saeki does his best to help them, gently listening to their fears and worries but encounters a familiar series of social problems which made their fates inevitable stemming from entrenched poverty and social inequality.

Only six months into the job, he wonders if he’s really getting through and if his efforts are worthwhile. His most challenging prisoner is a young man convicted of a mass killing of those with learning difficulties (inspired by a real life case), whom he deemed to be a drain on national resources. A hyper-rational sociopath, Takamiya (Leo Tamaoki) baits Saeki with unassailable, coldhearted logic which asks why, if he’s happy enough to kill and eat “stupid” animals like cows and pigs, but not “clever” ones like dolphins, his application of the same logic to the human world can be wrong? If all creatures have an equal right to life, then killing for food is as wrong as any other kind of killing and the death penalty nothing more than state sanctioned murder. There is no rational answer for Takamiya’s philosophy and aside from his abhorrent, unfeeling rationality he may have a point when it comes to social hypocrisy. All Saeki can do is ask him to stand with the people that he killed, and acknowledge that God or no God, Saeki too will be with him until the very end.

If Takamiya begins to question the terrifying rationalism which led him to his truly barbaric act, he does so probably not because of Saeki’s ministrations but because of his proximity to death. Meanwhile, another prisoner, Suzuki (Kanji Furutachi), convicted of a stalker murder, seems to have picked up entirely the wrong message in coming to blame just about everyone else for his crime and absolving himself of responsibility. He might have found peace, but it is not the kind of peace he was supposed to find. Noguchi (Setsuko Karasuma), meanwhile, the only female prisoner, continues to talk about the future as if she really thinks she’s getting out. Only Shoichi (Takeo Gozu), an elderly man, seems to truly accept Saeki’s teachings though it is perhaps enough to make him feel as if he really is making a difference.

Sako opts for subtlety in pointing out the inherent hypocritical immorality of the death penalty and particularly in the context of the Japanese legal system which relies heavily on confessions often extracted under duress. Battling his own sense of guilt, Saeki tries to save himself by saving the souls of others but finds his work an uphill battle in a society which prefers not to speak of unpleasant matters and thereby renders itself absolute and unaccountable in the rigidity of its justice.

The Chaplain (教誨師, Kyoukaishi) was screened as part of Japan Cuts 2019.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Tag: Dai Sako

Drive Into Night (夜を走る, Dai Sako, 2022)

The Chaplain (教誨師, Dai Sako, 2018)