Hirohisa Kawaragi

Hirohisa Kawaragi (河原木宏尚, 1959 - 1 April 2001) was a Japanese underground filmmaker and physician associated with Nagoya’s independent film scene in the early 1980s. As a member of the film club at Aichi Medical University, he became involved in an underground cultural movement that brought together punk music, experimental cinema, and other forms of alternative artistic expression His best-known work, Ran・Easter (乱・Easter, 1981), was a provocative underground film described as a visual scandal fusing punk with underground culture and rooted anarchism, reportedly prompting the exclamation “Vile and vulgar!” from Nagisa Ōshima. After moving to Tokyo at the age of 18, Kawaragi encountered the city’s urban culture and underground arts scene, which influenced his filmmaking and challenged the expectations placed upon him by his conservative family background. A few minutes into Ran・Easter, a man’s voice says, “I can’t take this anymore.” According to a recollection by a collaborator, the voice belongs to Kawaragi himself and can be understood as the inner monologue of a young man who had moved to Tokyo at 18. Kawaragi reportedly gathered his parents and relatives in his hometown for a screening of Ran・Easter. When the film ended and the lights came on, the atmosphere in the room was imagined to be bitterly cold. By showing the film to his family, Kawaragi finally freed himself from the burden of their long-held expectations. Kawaragi subsequently worked on Crazy Dolls, an ambitious 8mm underground film starring Machiko Watanabe and Tatsuya Nakamura. Conceived as a cyberpunk feature, the production brought together figures from Nagoya’s punk scene, underground theatre, and butoh dance community. After various twists and turns, he eventually became a doctor and took over the family business, but he died prematurely at the age of 42 on April Fool’s Day in 2001