Directed by Kazuo Hara • 1972 • Japan
Starring Hiroshi Yokota, Koichi Yokozuka
An early documentary to portray the experiences of disabled people with compassion and complexity, Kazuo Hara’s searing debut is also one of the most unflinching films ever made about what it means to be an outsider. Produced in collaboration with the Green Lawn—a group of activists with cerebral palsy who work to raise awareness of the condition—GOODBYE CP blends jagged, shot-on-the-fly footage of the members’ seemingly Sisyphean struggle to take their message to the streets with raw, sometimes confrontational interviews in which they reveal the torment of living in a society cruelly indifferent to their existence. In making his subjects active participants in the film’s creation—a practice he would continue throughout his career—Hara powerfully asserts the humanity and agency of those who have long been denied both.
Up Next in Documentaries by Kazuo Hara and Sachiko Kobayashi
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Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974
Directed by Kazuo Hara • 1974 • Japan
Starring Miyuki Takeda, Sachiko Kobayashi, Kazuo HaraWhen his wife, the outspoken feminist Miyuki Takeda, announced that she was leaving him in order to find herself, Kazuo Hara began this raw, intensely personal documentary as a way to both maintain a conn...
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The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On
Directed by Kazuo Hara • 1987 • Japan
Made with a righteous political anger that anticipates the incendiary polemics of documentarians such as Michael Moore and Joshua Oppenheimer, Kazuo Hara’s most renowned film is a harrowing confrontation with one of Japanese history’s darkest chapters: the a...
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A Dedicated Life
Directed by Kazuo Hara • 1994 • Japan
Starring Mitsuharu Inoue, Hiroshi Noma, Jakuchô SetouchiKazuo Hara’s interest in iconoclastic figures living in opposition to mainstream society led him to begin work on A DEDICATED LIFE, an intimate, fly-on-the-wall portrait of the controversial writer Mit...
