Today, the Japanese modernist Nagisu Oshimu is best remembered for the controversial and explicit “In the Realm of Senses” from 1976, but back in the 1960s he presented himself as an excellent provocateur, subversive and author of a distinctive style. He is considered one of the leading filmmakers of the movement, also called the Japanese New Wave, and mostly under the influence of his French like-minded and film revolutionary Godard, he shot this Brecht’s dark satire. “Death by hanging” could also be described as a protest film criticizing the then-death penalty in Japan, and in the shocking and almost documentary introductory scene we see what such a case looks like in Japan in the 1960s.
But the only problem is that by some miracle a young Korean sentenced to death will survive the hanging, and when they realize what happened, prison staff and executioners will not know what to do next. All the more so because the young man lost his memory during the unsuccessful hanging, and now it is not clear to anyone how to interpret the law. Because a man is hanged, and according to the law, the death penalty must not be imposed on those who are unaware of the crimes they committed because they are mentally undercapacitated or mentally ill, and the unfortunate Korean, according to some, is in just such a state. On the other hand, there is a serious problem with how he will explain to his superiors the fact that the man survived the hanging so they will figure out how to solve this completely absurd case – they will try to persuade the Korean to admit guilt so they can hang him again.
And it won’t go easy at all, clearly, because it will need to remind the man of the crime he allegedly committed, and it will turn to the end of “Death by Hanging” into a hilarious and almost Kafkaesque, surrealistic grotesque that Oshima structured as film within film. The figure of a Korean survivor of Oshima’s hanging is based on a real Korean who was hanged for murder ten years earlier, and although the film is made in a documentary style, Oshima took a lot from German playwright Bertold Brecht and his ideas and theories are perhaps the best managed to transfer to film.
Everything is full of contradictions, so even though it was all recorded on the trail of documentary drama, it is clear to us from the beginning that nothing is realistic here. It is a film that exudes black humor, irony, that typical Japanese farcical humorous trick, and Oshima deals with topics such as guilt and remorse, but also questioning whether it is moral that the state has the right to commit this type of violence against people no matter what they did it. It is a film that stands out for its originality, and Oshima has proven himself as a master of directing, a visionary who managed to perform this crazy story in only a few locations and with a minimalist budget. Rating 8/10.
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