Un’assenza nel paesaggio. Governamentalità e commodificazione in A.K.A. Serial Killer

In autumn 1968, Nagayama Norio killed four people and was dubbed ‘the hand-gun serial killer’ by the media. The following year a collective led by Adachi Masao shot the experimental documentary film A.K.A. Serial Killer on the subject, leading to a debate on the magazine Eiga hihyō about the approach they used, which would be called fūkeiron, ‘landscape theory’. Starting from the Foucultian concept of governmentality, the article explores how the film documents the transformations taking place in Japan at the end of the high-growth era, producing a critique of media representation of violence and documenting the progressive homogenisation and commodification of the landscape.