For the past month there's been a lot of talk about how much our sense of the world has changed since the events of Sept. 11. Actually, it's mainly changed for Americans, but as someone once said: When America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold.
Given this atmosphere of increased unease, the premiere of Tatsuya Mori's video documentary, "A2," at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival last weekend, took on a special meaning. The 130-minute work, a sequel to "A," Mori's rarely screened video documentary about Aum Shinrikyo, covers the cult's activities in 1999 and 2000, right after it changed its name to Aleph.
In the final scene, Mori sits with the cult's PR director and tells him he believes all of Japan's recent social problems started on the day several Aum members released sarin gas in the Tokyo subway system. The sense of well-being that the Japanese traditionally enjoyed was destroyed that day and will never return.