Independent filmmaker Tsukamoto Shinya was born 15 years after the end of World War II. Beginning with “Fires on the Plain” in 2014, the filmmaker shifted his focus from inventive genre films to interrogations of the whos and whys of real-world violence. That concern never left me since I made ‘Fires.’” Premiering in Venice’s competition, “Mr.
Nelson, Did You Kill People?” is the culmination of this decade of work. The film tells the real-life story of U.S. Vietnam veteran Allen Nelson, who must confront how the war upended his life as he works with a counsellor.
Nelson is a well-known figure to Japanese audiences, but a relative unknown internationally. Tsukamoto first read Nelson’s autobiography, which the film adapts and takes its title from during his research for “Fires.” “[Nelson] wrote with extraordinary honesty about his experiences — describing not only the suffering he experienced, but also the violence he inflicted,” says Tsukamoto. The powerful physicality that Rodney had cultivated through years of stage work was like a sensitive antenna, reaching out to call Allen’s spirit down from heaven.” We remain with Nelson throughout — Tsukamoto notes that the film contains zero objective camera angles.
For the film to move forward, Tsukamoto says, producer Kinoshita Group “gave us one clear condition: We had to cast an actor known by audiences around the world.” The film found its recognizable face in Geoffrey Rush, who portrays the counsellor. Nelson” is the highest-budget feature that Tsukamoto has ever made, but it was achieved through his usual methods. I believe, if there had been no war, Allen would have been a deeply decent person.
The question I want to ask is this: Do we really want to choose a path that sends our young people to the battlefield and turns them into killers?”
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