ART HOUSED: CAMPAIGN

Next Monday the fine, keen-eyed folks at the DocYard will be presenting Kazuhiro Soda’s Campaign, a tickling observation of local politics in Japan.

Our subject is the radiant Kazuhiko Yamauchi, an avid stamp collector of middle age and proud descendant to a long line of Japanese postal workers. But Yamauchi’s snug home life gets upturned when his faint acquaintance with Prime Minister Juncichiro Koizumi suddenly and mysteriously wins Yamauchi a spot running under Koizumi’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for an empty seat in the council of Kawasaki, Japan’s 9th most populated city.

Despite having no background in politics whatsoever, floored and fantasy-driven, Yamauchi accepts the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; though not without a slight, queasy sensation of the LDP’s puppet strings dangling overhead.

From an angle, Yamauchi’s own motivations for running are any civilian’s nightmare: glossed-over schoolboy dreams of reverence and fame, sometimes even imagining himself Prime Minister, without any specific, heartfelt concern for social welfare. What’s more, Yamauchi isn’t even familiar with the town he wants to govern; he only moved to Kawasaki after being nominated.

The great irony of the film, and also its greatest pleasure, is that Yamauchi one of the most genuine politicians we have yet encountered.

Of course this is partly because he has no real affirmations of his own to uphold; still there is something so incorruptible about the man, so goofy and unassuming. In Soda’s smartly captured campaign scenes, Yamauchi is often shown next to his jaded elderly competitors, who raise their frail, dull arms to the crowd and wave as if forced at gunpoint. Yamauchi, on the other hand, stands erect as a beacon, shooting his spastic arms in the air with the frequency and velocity of a bootleg fireworks show.

Soon the awkward and abnormally pleasant stamp enthusiast is zipping through the crowd, shaking hands, bowing like a pigeon on angel dust, and flashing his unmistakable smile, which is permanent like any politician’s yet somehow comes off as completely natural. Even given his blatant lack of opinion, or just of relevant knowledge in general, when in Yamauchi’s presence one can’t help but feel the vague sensation of election-time hope.

The bigger picture of Yamauchi’s situation, however, is anything but hopeful, and Soda explores the shady side of the campaign in a quietly investigative fashion.

With an eye for subtext, particularly when shooting in the campaign headquarters, Soda’s film suggests it’s no surprise that a charming, charismatic, youthful individual with no experience could be chosen by a major party with a full-fanged political agenda, to run in an election more swayed by the personality and flash of a campaign than by the actual merits of its candidate.

Soda is most perceptive toward the end of the campaign, often finding Yamauchi cornered by his team of reprimanding aides, or senseis, and a few paternalistic LDP “supporters” who can’t stop reminding their defenseless candidate of his undying debt of gratitude and “loyalty” to the party. This is especially fishy considering Yamauchi was practically the campaign’s sole financial provider, and had resorted to sleeping on the floor of his tiny Kawasaki apartment at the time of shooting. Where a more sensitive director might let his or her own outrage bleed into a tale so icky, under Soda’s restraint the corruption we witness in Campaign is made all the more poignant and disturbing by its natural unveiling.

Playing at the Brattle Monday 2.20