Behind the scenes during a Japanese election

June 14, 2009 9:34 PM

Campaign is a documentary by Kazuhiro Soda. The film follows the 2005 election campaign of political novice Kazuhiko Yamauchi: In the film he's scolded all the time and people chew him out and he is generally humiliated, constantly, but he remains optimistic and he never speaks ill of other people. He's sincere, but maybe too honest. He didn't hide the fact that he was a political novice and a "parachute candidate". I think it's quite rare to see a person who wants to be a politician and who's that honest and sincere.

Campaign Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Found at AsianVirusNet's excellent YouTube channel.

posted by KokuRyu (7 comments total)

Full film here
posted by KokuRyu at 9:41 PM on June 14, 2009

after one part, very nice, thanks. i remember stumbling across this at the Why Democracy? project after seeing Please Vote for Me, but hadn't taken a close look.
posted by ioesf at 10:51 PM on June 14, 2009

They should run this on NHK or one of the BS channels between now and the election in August (September? October?), but I fear that hell will freeze over before that happens. Too many people in this country are disillusioned or just plain ignorant about politics and government, but those who don't participate, either as voters or as candidates, are partially responsible for the perpetuation of the same politicians and policies they decry. You get the government you deserve, indeed.

Thanks for the post, KokuRyu.
posted by armage at 11:51 PM on June 14, 2009

This is an ace documentary. Well worth checking out.
posted by Cantdosleepy at 12:53 AM on June 15, 2009

Great stuff. I caught this a while ago as a part of BBC4's Japan season and found it refreshingly uplifting, at least as regards as Soda's marvellously pleasant attitude. Watching it again in light of the UK MP's expenses scandal, a symptom of near-terminal political malaise in this country, Japan seems more foreign and bizarre to me than ever.

Of course then I remembered all that brazen bullying on the part of the party elders, and the awful, demeaning treatment doled out to Soda's wife, and I remember that underneath it all we truly are all one.
posted by Kandarp Von Bontee at 4:37 AM on June 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

I liked the interplay between Yama and his (house)wife. Their day-to-day interplay is itself a behind-the-scenes look at married life in Japan, and would seem to contradict many (foreign) misconceptions about male/female relations in Japan.

Pretty much every scene in the doc is pure gold.
posted by KokuRyu at 10:24 AM on June 15, 2009

IMO all 10 of the Why Democracy series are well worth a watch (though there is a fair variation in quality).
posted by Erberus at 5:11 PM on June 15, 2009