Me and the Cult Leader (2020)
Where everyone has their own response to tragedy and pain, one of the rarest responses is a search for understanding and dialogue between victim and aggressor. In his directorial debut, Me and The Cult Leader, Atsushi Sakahara who was a victim of the 1995 sarin gas attack in Tokyo’s subway system meets up with Hiroshi Araki, a current executive member of the group responsible for the attack which has left Sakahara permanently scarred and the two men travel together around Japan sharing memories and learning not just about each other but also about themselves along the way.
Deeply personal and shocking on multiple different levels, the film is must watch on premise alone. With a set-up that would seem distractingly unique if the film was based in fiction, the perspective within Me and The Cult Leader is unlike anything seen in film before. What starts as two men breaking the awkward silence with jokes quickly becomes a vulnerable and honest friendship that always puts dialogue before anything else. The film doesn't carry a hidden motive of either demonizing or justifying the beliefs that Hiroshi Araki carries and simply allows these two men whose lives have been forever connected to this tragedy to express themselves and their emotions. Not just does the conversation touch on this tragedy but the conversation is much larger. At the same time, this conversation is constantly a bit awkward with both often dancing around the elephant in the room, it also is largely honest and even intimate as both men truly allow the other a personal access to their views and emotions.
The perspectives featured in this conversation and film stands as one of the most moving and touching pieces of cinema in recent memory. Conversations and dialogues like this simply don't exist traditionally and the nuances found really sticks with audiences long after the runtime ends. This is a film that in a matter of minutes will go from having the audience hurt with laughing as these two men have a wonderfully natural banter and chemistry only to then destroy audiences with quiet emotional gut punches such as Hiroshi Araki quietly shedding a tear from a train, watching his grandmothers station near where he grew up pass by. When the film does have to tackle the tragedy it is mature and well crafted with both men accepting the event in their own ways without letting it define their relationship fully. The film is aware that both men exist just as much outside the sphere involving this tragedy than they do it in and respect each individual and their own entity as a well-rounded person.
Where this pull and perspective is due to the chemistry and conversation between Atsushi Sakahara and Hiroshi Araki, the strength of the film also is proof of the ability of Atsushi Sakahara as a director. Whenever a film is deeply personal to the filmmaker, the potential that the film will feel messy and incoherent as the filmmaker struggles to convert their emotions to a package for general audiences becomes a real worry, but Atsushi Sakahara nails it. The flow of the film and its conversation always feels natural and the actual skill of the film to go from comedy to emotion is legitimately impressive. The film never loses its way or an understanding of its own identity.
Even with 2020 being one of the all-time great years for documentaries with over a dozen documentary features being legitimately incredible, Me and The Cult Leader carves a special place towards the top of the list when it comes to quality. There is no other film with the perspective or conversation that makes up the film and there are moments throughout the clean 96-minute runtime that will stay with audiences for weeks after the film actually ends. It is fun, personal, intimate, haunting, and above everything else honest.
Deeply personal and shocking on multiple different levels, the film is must watch on premise alone. With a set-up that would seem distractingly unique if the film was based in fiction, the perspective within Me and The Cult Leader is unlike anything seen in film before. What starts as two men breaking the awkward silence with jokes quickly becomes a vulnerable and honest friendship that always puts dialogue before anything else. The film doesn't carry a hidden motive of either demonizing or justifying the beliefs that Hiroshi Araki carries and simply allows these two men whose lives have been forever connected to this tragedy to express themselves and their emotions. Not just does the conversation touch on this tragedy but the conversation is much larger. At the same time, this conversation is constantly a bit awkward with both often dancing around the elephant in the room, it also is largely honest and even intimate as both men truly allow the other a personal access to their views and emotions.
The perspectives featured in this conversation and film stands as one of the most moving and touching pieces of cinema in recent memory. Conversations and dialogues like this simply don't exist traditionally and the nuances found really sticks with audiences long after the runtime ends. This is a film that in a matter of minutes will go from having the audience hurt with laughing as these two men have a wonderfully natural banter and chemistry only to then destroy audiences with quiet emotional gut punches such as Hiroshi Araki quietly shedding a tear from a train, watching his grandmothers station near where he grew up pass by. When the film does have to tackle the tragedy it is mature and well crafted with both men accepting the event in their own ways without letting it define their relationship fully. The film is aware that both men exist just as much outside the sphere involving this tragedy than they do it in and respect each individual and their own entity as a well-rounded person.
Where this pull and perspective is due to the chemistry and conversation between Atsushi Sakahara and Hiroshi Araki, the strength of the film also is proof of the ability of Atsushi Sakahara as a director. Whenever a film is deeply personal to the filmmaker, the potential that the film will feel messy and incoherent as the filmmaker struggles to convert their emotions to a package for general audiences becomes a real worry, but Atsushi Sakahara nails it. The flow of the film and its conversation always feels natural and the actual skill of the film to go from comedy to emotion is legitimately impressive. The film never loses its way or an understanding of its own identity.
Even with 2020 being one of the all-time great years for documentaries with over a dozen documentary features being legitimately incredible, Me and The Cult Leader carves a special place towards the top of the list when it comes to quality. There is no other film with the perspective or conversation that makes up the film and there are moments throughout the clean 96-minute runtime that will stay with audiences for weeks after the film actually ends. It is fun, personal, intimate, haunting, and above everything else honest.