A Filmmaker Exploring the Many Layers of “Truth”
Known as a documentary director, Tatsuya Mori was born in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, in 1956 and is currently also active as a specially appointed professor at Meiji University. His father’s transfers as a Japan Coast Guard officer meant he spent his childhood in different places. After graduating from Rikkyo University’s Faculty of Law, he followed an unusual path: instead of job hunting, he moved between part-time jobs while devoting himself to theater for around seven years. These experiences in diverse places may be said to have formed the foundation of his later multifaceted perspective.
The most distinctive feature of Mori’s work is its focus on the many layers of “truth.” His documentaries approach subjects generally labeled “evil,” or excluded from society, from the inside, offering multiple perspectives. This is not simply a reporting method but part of his underlying philosophy. Mori questions the idea of a single “truth” and asks us to consider the importance of viewing a subject from different angles.
Recognizing the Contradiction That “Documentaries Tell Lies”
In his acclaimed A series, Mori focused on Aum Shinrikyo, presenting a view of the outside world from within a group that society had deemed evil. The project originally began as a television program, but filming was ordered to stop on the grounds that it “did not portray Aum Shinrikyo negatively.” Mori continued filming independently, however, and the resulting work received high praise at festivals not only in Japan but around the world.
As this experience shows, Mori’s creative approach has the courage to step away from the perspective considered socially correct and look at things from another angle. This stems not simply from a rebellious spirit but from a sincere effort to understand the essence of things from multiple sides. The program Documentaries Tell Lies, which Mori planned and supervised in 2006, clearly expresses this approach. In it, he questioned the complexities of handling “truth” within the documentary genre, revealing the process through which the filmmaker’s viewpoint and editing construct “truth.”
A Viewing Experience That Develops Media Literacy
In FAKE, released in 2016, Mori took on an even more searching challenge. Following Mamoru Samuragochi, who had drawn attention through a ghostwriting scandal, he extended his questions beyond the simple opposition of who was lying to how the media, society, and we as viewers consume “truth.” Promoted with the phrase “the shocking final 12 minutes,” the film attracted attention and functions as a means of questioning viewers’ own media literacy.
In 2019, he released i—Documentary of the Journalist, following Tokyo Shimbun social affairs reporter Isoko Mochizuki. Through her tense exchanges at press conferences with Yoshihide Suga, then chief cabinet secretary, the film incisively explored the relationship between Japan’s media and power and the state of journalism. Mori clearly expressed the concern that “the media in this country are not right; journalism is not functioning.” The film won the Japanese Cinema Splash Best Film Award at the 32nd Tokyo International Film Festival.
In Search of True Neutrality
In 2023, Mori released his first dramatic feature, September 1923. Released on September 1, the centenary of the Great Kanto Earthquake, it confronts the dangers of group psychology through an actual historical incident. Even as he expanded his field of expression from documentary to drama, he consistently maintained his commitment to looking at things from another perspective.
Mori’s creative approach is not merely presenting both sides under the guise of neutrality. Instead, by deliberately illuminating a socially accepted “truth” from a different angle, he encourages deeper understanding. His work teaches us about the complexity of the concept of truth and the importance of seeing it from multiple perspectives. In today’s information society, where fake news is widespread, the questions he poses are increasingly important. Recognizing the possibility of another perspective beyond the world we can see may be precisely the “true media literacy” that Tatsuya Mori seeks.
