Tatsuya Mori took the gamble of his life when he packed in his job for Aum Shinrikyo. Although the documentary maker's plan was not to join the cult but to examine its activities and characteristics, his portrayal of the human side of the group ruffled more than a few feathers.
Two documentary films directed by Mori show not only what goes on behind the scenes of the cult, now known as Aleph, but also the smiling faces of members and their friendly interaction with the local people who monitor the group. Mori's footage is full of surprises and paradoxes that news coverage and TV documentaries have never captured.
``I wanted to eliminate prejudice and preconceptions,'' says the 45-year-old director, who believes violent conflicts occur only when people focus on one side of a story.
In ``A2,'' the second film in Mori's series about Aum made last year, a young cult member and local volunteer monitors in Fujioka, Gunma Prefecture, chat over the fence that divides them and exchange books before the cult's facility in the city is demolished. A relationship initially based on the committing of atrocities ends in friendship.
In the next scene, members of a radical right-wing group scream as they clash with police guarding the cult's Yokohama office, then calmly talk to another Aum follower. Mori then shows the right-wing group members, both old and young alike, attending a Shinto ceremony to offer New Year's prayers, pursuing their religious beliefs while persecuting those of another persuasion.
Mori even questions some cult followers about their beliefs, their guru Chizuo Matsumoto and his orders to kill.
Matsumoto, Aum's founder, is being tried for alleged involvement in at least a dozen crimes, including the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system on March 20, 1995, which killed 12 people and left more than 5,000 sick.
It was just after the Tokyo attack that Mori began documenting the cult.
At the time, he was following Aum for a TV documentary program. But a rift soon developed between him and the program's producer, as Mori refused to comply with some of the producer's conditions.
The producer demanded that Mori use Aum experts and researchers as reporters and include interviews with victims and their families. He was not to show the finished product to Aum members before it was aired on television. In other words, Mori says, the producer was simply out to make money and secure a high viewer rating by using a tried and tested formula that had worked for other stations.
Complying with the requirements would have defeated Mori's purpose in making the documentary. He broke his contract, refusing to pander to viewers' tastes and confident that other stations would jump at the chance to use his rare footage.
To his great disappointment, however, other stations set similar conditions. That didn't stop Mori, just as the cult's lethal gas attacks and slaying of Yokohama lawyer Tsutsumi Sakamoto and his family did not make the director want to quit.
In fact, Mori says, he never felt afraid of Aum.
``I wasn't frightened at all,'' he says. Having requested that Aum allow him to film its members, he stuck his camera into every nook and cranny of the cult's facilities and recorded followers' activities.
Unlike news programs that portrayed Aum members as ``untouchables'' who often refuse media coverage or remain silent in the face of residents' campaigns against them, Mori's documentary films ``A'' and ``A2'' show them to be cooperative and even cheerful at times.
His unusual portrayal of Aum provoked harsh criticism when ``A'' was first screened in May 1998. Some members of the public even doubted whether his take on the cult warranted comment at all.
``I think the public simply decided to ignore my film,'' Mori says of the first Aum movie, which introduces the aftermath of the sarin gas attacks and the resulting confusion among followers.
Mori let his camera roll even when the police violently interrogated three Aum members on the street. When ``A'' was shown, human rights activists praised him for capturing what they considered unfair arrests, Mori says. But that was never his intention.
``That's not what I wanted to hear,'' Mori says. ``It means nothing if Aum is seen as good and the police are seen as evil. I hope people can think beyond that.''
In 1999, the director took the film to the Berlin International Film Festival, a move he describes as a great responsibility. ``I felt I was carrying a heavy burden and showing a negative side of Japan,'' he says.
The question-and-answer session that followed the screening of the film certainly became heated. Mori recalls one viewer wanting to check whether the movie was a true documentary, as he said Japan seemed fake and the people in the film appeared to be acting.
But Mori was relieved when an elderly German woman approached him afterward and gave him a hug. She told him Germany had once shown its dark side and had experienced terror similar to that brought about by Aum, and that was why it had gone to war, he says.
However, it was only after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States that Mori felt sure his approach was right.
``I realized Japan wasn't the only nation to suffer such terrorism,'' he says. ``I finally felt comfortable about introducing the film and felt proud of my work.''
Having grown up at a time when self-produced films were all the rage, Mori's first ambition was to make dramas. But, having trained as an actor, he would often stand in for actor friends, and he eventually found himself spending more time in front of the camera than looking through the viewfinder.
``Acting is much lighter (than directing),'' says Mori, whose starred in several films, among them ``Cure'' director Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 1997 debut movie. ``You don't have to think much when you're acting. If I'd thought too much, directors wouldn't have liked it.''
Even when he took a job with a television production company, Mori's heart wasn't set on making documentary films. It was only when hunting down Aum members for ``A'' that he became aware of the power and scope of the genre.
``I realized I could present a subjective viewpoint through documentary films, unlike with TV documentaries,'' he says.
``A2'' won the Citizens' Award and Special Award at the 2001 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival.
Mori says he wanted to portray the aspect of the human spirit that is lost when an individual belongs to a group, whether it be a religious organization, a local community, a scandal-tainted firm such as Snow Brand Foods Co. or even the Foreign Ministry.
``I wanted to show that important things like imagination and love for others are taken away by the group mentality,'' he says.
When looking at two sides, it is the stronger and larger entity that has a greater capacity for altering its beliefs and opinions, Mori argues. Therefore, it is society as a whole that needs to learn from the Aum experience and change for the better, he says. He hopes members of the cult won't compromise under the pressure and demands of society, as they appear to be doing by having abandoned certain teachings and participating in street cleaning to gain acceptance by the community.
``Rules are rules, but they are just like us in allowing some things that even go against their religious teachings,'' Mori says.
Although Aum bans followers from watching movies, about 10 members featured in ``A2'' came to see the documentary, Mori recalls.
With the film having brought home to them the chaos they had caused, the followers left without comment, he says. But they later sent him an e-mail message saying the documentary had made them think and reconsider their stance.
Now that Mori has learned to manipulate documentary film making to present subjective views, his next project is a third documentary in the series, in which he will demonstrate his own beliefs about the Aum faith.
``A2'' opens on March 23 at Box Higashi-Nakano. ``A'' will play at Uplink Factory in Shibuya Ward from March 16.