I was cruising the foreign film racks at Seattle Public Library and this title struck me as interesting. United Red Army. Hmm, what was this about? Having never heard of them I decided to take a look.

Yikes! This turned out to be one of those movies you wish you could unsee, like 'Irreversible', 'Melancholie der Engel' or 'Dogtooth'. The students violence against their fellow members seemed way too depraved and over-the-top. I tried to learn as much about this group as I could but I got tired of looking because whatever I found spoke mainly about the group's failed ideology. I guess I have no choice but to take the intensity of it at face value.

This turned out to be another one of those films I try my best to internalize and decipher but fail to grasp. I've spoken many times about not comprehending man's violence against man and this film only adds to that mystery. I mean, if you could convince a couple of young Japanese kids to come to your mountain hideaway, wouldn't the last thing on your mind be killing them? How do you even convince someone to kill herself by repeatedly punching herself in the face till she looks like hamburger meat? I don't know. Maybe it's just me but I find this extreme violence unrealistic. I could handle it; I've seen worse, and the film is very powerful, well written and acted; however, if someone could point me to literature which shows these kids' anger at Japanese society was so vitriolic that they decimated their own fellow man (and women) like that, I'd be interested in seeing it. Make me a believer.

Japan's infamous Red Army emerged from the tumultuous anti-Anpro demonstrations of the 50s and 60s. Anyone who has encountered Japan's current crop of apathetic, myopic undergraduates will be surprised to know just how active and radical their parents' generation were. Japan's present malaise seems to be a hangover from the excesses of those times, and Koji Wakamatsu sets out to chronicle in detail the worst of it, the events that led to the siege in a mountain lodge and a shoot out with police.

As much as the detailing for the historical cinematic record is the central concern, the film is also finely attuned to the depictions of a descent into collective madness. Idealists are taken in by demagogues as claustrophobia engenders paranoia and murderous intent. Maki Sakai as the ill-fated Toyama falls furthest, a naive college girl spouting creed she does not understand. Even before the darkness descends, she seems out of place. Go Jibiki is unfaltering as the relentless Mori, while Akie Namiki wears an evil stare that is positively unnerving. But it is perhaps unfair to single out certain performances in what is a collective triumph.

A three-hour-plus running time is gruelling at any time, and with a film that authentically serves up historical incidents that are difficult to stomach, it becomes a double punch. But there is something commanding about Wakamatsu's mise-en-scene, which along with the sublime performances, and hypnotic soundtrack, make one feel the viewing itself is a mission that must be completed.

As a record of an important episode in Japan's 20th century patchy flirtations with mass murder, the film is an outstanding triumph. As a representation of the chilling banality of evil, it is also shockingly plausible. The viewer is reminded of all manner of human failings, and of a singular triumph - the power of cinema to inform and edify. United Red Army is quite simply a masterpiece.

In the early 60s student protests lead to the formation of a few left leaning organisations. Events spiral through the 60s with the protests turning into student revolts. Two organisation come to the fore as the most radical and enduring: the RAF, and the RLF. The two of them decide to join and form the United Red Army with the aim of starting a revolution that will lead to a better world. Except things don't go according to plan and events spiral down into an orgy of hatred, torture, and violence.

This is an uncompromising film directed by master of controversy Koji Wakamatsu. The story is linear and easy to follow. Perhaps it saturates the viewer with too much information, and some parts are too long, but it is quite interesting to see the formation of a terrorist group and their descent to hell. Furthermore, the fact that Wakamatsu knew a lot of the terrorists, himself participating in some of their earliest actions adds weight to the film.

It is a tough film to watch but quite interesting.