Your son is a terrorist. Dinner's at six. What do you wear?
One year after the Kidojis' eldest son Otohiko was arrested for his part in a terrorist kidnapping, which resulted in multiple deaths, all the other perpetrators' parents have either resigned from their professional positions or taken their own lives, Nobuyuki Kidoji remains adamant that he is not responsible for his son's actions.
Acting
Nakadai's volcanic restraint — a man imploding in real-time.
Direction
Kobayashi's final film: unflinching, architectural, brutal.
Cinematography
Static compositions that trap you in suffocating domestic space.
Director
Masaki Kobayashi
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Based on real 1970s Japanese Red Army faction violence; Kobayashi explores how terrorism's shame ripples through respectable middle-class families.
Kobayashi died months after completing this, his 22nd film — fitting swan song from cinema's master of institutional cruelty.
JP
