To the Backstreet: The Films Kenji Nakagami Left Out (2001)

A fictionalized documentary on Japanese writer Nakagami Kenji, who died young in 1992. Nakagami was the chronicler of the seaside town of Shingu. Many of Nakagami's stories are set in a specific alley in Shingu, an alley that has now gone, but that lives on in the fiction of Nakagami. And also on celluloid, because the writer filmed the alley before its demolition. Filmmaker Izuchi Kisshu goes in search of what is left of Nakagami's alley. The specific mood of the small harbour town, however, turns out to be difficult to find. Kisshu reads the books of Nakagami out loud for us at the locations where they are set, but it is difficult to invoke the magic. Time and again, we return to the film images made by Nakagami, while Kisshu seems to search in vain in the present. The mood of the harbour town is vulnerable and precious yet can disappear just like that
Kenji Nakagami one of the most notable Japanese writers of the post-war died in 1992. Is work reveals a strong connection to is homeland, Kishu: a mountainous region which connects to the pacific ocean trough a river. "To The Alley" (alternative title) is a documentary about Kenji's life. Recurring to 16 mm images from the writer's personal archive and adding new footages the director Aoyama travels trough the paths of the life and art of the Japanese writer