Review | Me and the Cult Leader movie review: Japanese documentary follows Tokyo subway gas attack victim and member of the cult responsible across the country

Atsushi Sakahara, a victim of the 1995 sarin gas attack, documents his meeting with Hiroshi Araki, PR director of what was then known as the Aum Shinrikyo cult
Anyone unaware of their backgrounds might be forgiven for mistaking this as a reunion between old classmates as they journey to their hometowns

Asian cinema: Japanese films

James Marsh

Published: 10:45am, 25 May 2021

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3/5 stars

The sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway on March 20, 1995, remains the most deadly attack on Japanese soil since the second world war. The incident, carried out by the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult, claimed 13 lives and injured more than 6,000 people, many of whom still wrestle with the after-effects more than 25 years later.

Filmmaker Atsushi Sakahara was one such victim and his film Me and the Cult Leader documents his meeting with Hiroshi Araki, current PR director of the cult now known as Aleph, who was a young Aum Shinrikyo devotee at the time of the attack.

Me and the Cult Leader is not your typical showdown between bitter rivals. Anyone unaware of Sakahara and Araki’s backgrounds might be forgiven for mistaking this as a reunion between old classmates. They are friendly towards one another, making jokes and small talk, as they journey to both their hometowns.

Inevitably, conversation turns to the horrifying incident that tragically entwined their lives, but even then there is a reluctance to bring it up, let alone relive the details or ruminate on the aftermath.

Araki, who is cripplingly timid and inarticulate, guides the jolly and jocular Sakahara around the modest living quarters he shares with other cult members, before taking him to the small rural village where he shares fond memories of childhood holidays at his grandmother’s home.

Hiroshi Araki, circa 1995, in a still from Me and the Cult Leader.

They visit the campus of the prestigious university where Araki studied before dropping out to join Aum, renouncing everyone and everything he knew in the process.

Their lengthy train journeys inevitably echo the subway crime scenes where the attacks were carried out, but it is near impossible to view Araki as a violent man. He refuses to admit that cult leader Shoko Asahara was responsible, conceding only that this was the verdict reached in court. Indeed, it is the ever playful Sakahara who persistently jibes and bullies his companion, even as he fights to keep his permanently damaged eyes from closing.

The film builds to a desperately uncomfortable meeting between Araki and Sakahara’s elderly parents, before a public mea culpa at the Kasumigaseki Station, targeted in the 1995 attack, in front of the press. Those who came looking for explanations or apologies are left sorely disappointed.

Hiroshi Araki (left) and Atsushi Sakahara in a still from Me and the Cult Leader.

Where the film succeeds is in portraying a deeply damaged human being who hitched his wagon to a highly dubious organisation and for whom any notion of distancing himself from this last-gasp sanctuary is too horrifying to contemplate. Living with the stigma of being associated with this deadly atrocity is, for Araki, somehow the lesser evil.

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This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Cult member and gas victim share an uneasy journey

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