CODE NAME: Nagasaki

Norway202170 minNorwegian, English, Japanese with English subtitlesCanadian PremiereDocumentary

If it had to be summed up, Code Name: Nagasaki is a documentary shot by Fredrik S. Hana, following his close friend and film protagonist Marius Lunde on his journey to connect with his estranged mother, who cut ties with the family when Lunde was a child, and relocated to Japan. The experience of watching the film, however, far exceeds this tidy storyline.

Interwoven with live documentary footage are scenes featuring Lunde in performance, paying homage to genres such as samurai epic, Japanese horror, and film noir. These sequences are not deviations from the documentary record; they are complex representations of Lunde’s very real fears and doubts. The artful fusion of raw footage and creative performance speaks to the strength of Lunde and Hana’s collaborative relationship, their love for film, and also a profound understanding of how a story can present complex emotion. Compelling and charismatic, Code Name: Nagasaki ushers us into a magnetically intimate record of Lunde’s exploration of family history. 

- Jasmine Gui