A Man Vanishes (1967) 2012

In the quiet town of Naoetsu, located in the Niigata prefecture, an unsettling atmosphere envelops the community following the alarming news of Tadashi Oshima, a 32-year-old salesman, who has mysteriously vanished. As filmmaker Shôhei Imamura and his dedicated team, including the interviewer Shigeru Tsuyuguchi, dig into Oshima’s life in hopes of uncovering the truth, they are confronted with a fascinating yet convoluted web of deception and concealed realities.

Their investigation leads them to Oshima’s close relatives and co-workers, individuals who initially appear to be reliable sources of information. Yet, as Imamura’s team delves deeper, it becomes apparent that each character harbors their own secrets lurking beneath their seemingly mundane exteriors. While Oshima is often depicted as a docile and compliant man, it turns out that he possesses a complex personality marked by a streak of embezzlement, an affair with a woman named Kimiko, and an aversion to marrying his fiancée, Yoshie Hayakawa, largely due to her sister Sayo’s unconventional relationship with another man.

As the unraveling of Oshima’s life continues, the investigators find themselves ensnared in a tangled web of falsehoods and ambiguous truths. The dynamics between Yoshie, Sayo, Shigeru Tsuyuguchi, Imamura, and the filmmaking crew become clouded by uncertainty. The distinction between reality and fiction begins to blur during an intense gathering at a restaurant, where a fishmonger claims to have seen Oshima meet Sayo in secret—sparking a cascade of shocking accusations and vehement denials.

In an unexpected turn of events, Imamura unveils that the entire narrative is a meticulously crafted illusion, a film set designed to probe the nebulous limits between truth and fiction. As filming concludes, the team is left grappling with the haunting notion: > “the film is finished, but reality is not.” Meanwhile, Oshima’s relatives and Yoshie consult with shamanic mediums who provide dire forecasts concerning Oshima’s fate, including a harrowing suggestion that Sayo may have played a role in his enigmatic disappearance, driven by jealousy.