Neither banal nor evil: Me and the Cult Leader - A Modern Report on the Banality of Evil

CONTROL: A search for understanding from a survivor of Aum Shinrikyo's 1995 sarin gas attack on Tokyo's subway. True to its arresting title and media sensation subject matter, Atsushi Sakahara’s Me and the Cult Leader – A Modern Report on the Banality of Evil makes for some undeniably riveting viewing – but for the most unexpected of reasons. Ostensibly a revisitation of the 1995 sarin gas attack on Tokyo’s subway system carried out by members of the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo religious cult – which left a dozen dead and hundreds more to suffer lifelong complications, including the director himself – the film is as much a story about Sakahara’s relationship with the mastermind behind the inexplicable acts of terrorism as Roger & Me is about Michael Moore and a similarly invisible yet omnipresent GM CEO.

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