Document of Collision: The Whiplashed Ones

The Whiplashed Ones uses a riveting experimental mode to explore a dizzying network of issues connected to chronic symptoms affecting Osaka taxi drivers. This major work of postwar activist independent film deploys a radical visual style that shuttles between X-rays and Osaka’s rough urban map, seeking out visualizations of a many-layered trauma that is physical and social and inscribed into the city’s transit structure. The film is one of the central works of Ko Hiroh (1938-2024), a filmmaker who left his mark on major turning points in Japanese cinema but is almost unknown outside of Japan.