Review - A Man Vanishes

 July 20, 2022
 
A Man Vanishes – Japan, 1967
 

Shohei Imamura’s A Man Vanishes begins with a police report detailing the disappearance of a 32-year-old Japanese man named Tadashi Oshima. From the report, we learn the barest information about him – his height, his job, the city he disappeared from, his engagement; and for all intents and purposes, he seems like an average man, certainly not the kind that would up and vanish suddenly. Perhaps it is this everyday disposition that draws Imamura (here playing himself) to the case. In any event, when the report concludes we learn that Imamura and his crew are on the move, determined to learn more about the missing man and possibly bring him home. It’s a noble cause, but it also puts Imamura (the character) in an unenviable position, for if he fails in this endeavor, he will only really have succeeded in memorializing his own naiveté.
 
And so the investigation begins. Interesting, two hours later, Imamura is no closer to ascertaining the whereabouts of Mr. Oshima, yet he has succeeded in destroying the reputation of several people involved in the investigation. One of these ruined characters is Oshima himself, who we learn early on embezzled money from his employer twice. The first time, he seems to have regretted his actions and over time paid the company back. The second time, well, you know what he did after that. We also learn that Oshima was a bit of a ladies man and may not have had a faithful bone in his body. In other words, he was no saint. This leads to a series of interviews with a woman named Kimiko, all seemingly intended to get the juiciest details possible. A love triangle. A dominating woman. A possible abortion. You can practically hear producers salivating. No wonder Kimiko’s face is partially covered – another reputation in tatters. Can you blame her for refusing to be interviewed further?
 
Having lost his sympathetic lead and been unable to coax more of the kind of details one often finds on daytime TV from the missing man’s lover, Imamura turns his attention to Oshima’s fiancé, Yoshie Hayakawa, who initially fits traditional notions of the innocent, sweet, and faithful damsel in distress. After all, who other than a lovely human being would put their lives on hold to search for the man who jilted her? Yet is that really a worthy subject for a movie? Where’s the plot? What’s the desired ending? And so in a quest to find something worth filming, Imamura and his interviewer, Shigeru Tsuyuguchi, begin to question her motives. To them, Yoshie seems too comfortable in front of the camera, too polished. They also suspect that she has fallen for Tsuyuguchi. And thus the film has a new subject for examination and potential humiliation, and, really, it is just getting started. By the end of the film, two additional characters will have their lives upended, with previously stable relationships perhaps permanently severed.
 
In other words, A Man Vanishes is not really about the vanished man or the 91,000 people that the film states go missing in Japan every year. Perhaps it was in 1967 before the advent of reality TV or the push for television ratings and box office results, but I suspect that modern audiences will see in the film a commentary on the media’s and film industry’s reliance of the sensational to get audiences into theaters. A film, this thinking goes, cannot be about a character who is never seen, and it cannot be about a character who the audience loses sympathy for. It must have drama, even if that drama has to be manufactured and never quite feels a hundred per cent authentic.
 
A Man Vanishes ends with two scenes that raise the curtain on the notion that the film was an actual documentary, yet they are a mistake. First, they cast Imamura as a creative wiz who must be looked to for guidance and explanation, as if he is a master-explainer of all things theoretical, but it also strips the film of some of its relevance and strengths. After you invest your emotions and energy in these characters for two hours, being told it was all a ruse can be more than frustrating. Would The Silence of the Lambs have the same impact if it ended with a scene in which Anthony Hopkins (not Hannibal Lector) and director Jonathon Demy talked about how movies can shape the audience’s perception of time? I doubt it.
 
A Man Vanishes has divided critics since its release. According to Wikipedia, director Nagisa Oshima criticized the film for using documentary techniques without having a theme, arguing that documentaries most often start with themes and central figures instead of discovering them as the film proceeds. I agree with that sentiment. Other critics have called it “explosively provocative” and “increasingly complex.” Here, I find myself torn, for while the film is well acted and visually intriguing due to its superb editing and excellent use of live action shots, archive footage, and photos, its ability to be provocative comes from its sensational aspects rather than actual drama. Characters sit around and cast aspersions on one another, yet there’s little in the way of payoff. True, life does not always have tidy resolutions, but they do have something resembling them. No so with A Man Vanishes. It just ends with arguing and a clapperboard. As the credits rolled, I didn’t marvel at Imamura’s ability to tell a story; rather, I questioned his ability to end one. After all, isn’t it a desperate writer that inserts himself into his own story? (on DVD)
 
3 stars

*A Man Vanishes is in Japanese with English subtitles.