Chilango

Night and Fog in Japan (Nihon no yoru to kiri)

Widely regarded as the most personal of director Nagisa Oshimas three 1960 films, Night and Fog in Japan centers around a gathering of former student activists, all of which protested the signing of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. Preferring to let go of the past, the old protestors had regrouped for a mutual friends marriage, and maintained a peaceful atmosphere until the last of their old companions arrives and immediately begins hurling accusations. Now a fugitive, the party crasher denounces the party as a charade and claims that those in attendance betrayed their own ideals in exchange for personal security. Before long, all pretenses of a happy reunion are thrown aside, and the marriage is reduced to an all-out brawl. Oshima himself was once a student protestor, and the film served as an open display of his disappointment with Japans left-wing political movement meant to illustrate how those who once united in hopes of making a positive chance in Japanese society have denigrated into bickering, weak-minded versions of their former selves.~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide