It starts with an image: men in suits, asleep on the streets of Tokyo. Not homeless. Just too tired to make it home.
Allegra Pacheco, a Costa Rican artist, saw that and couldn’t let it go. The result is her first film (2021, about 80 minutes, on Prime Video): a documentary about the Japanese salaryman, the anonymous white-collar cog of a huge labour machine, and about the idea that keeps the machine running, Ganbaru. Persevere. Don’t complain. Keep going.
The question it leaves on the table isn’t really about Japan. It’s about how much of that we’ve already imported.