‘I was struck by the danger of ideology’: AUM editor Keita Ideno: The Cult at the End of the World

The Japanese cult behind the deadly nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995 is the subject of AUM: The Cult at the End of the World by directors Ben Brown and Chiaki Yanagimoto. Editor Keita Ideno talks about how his bilingualism, previous collaborations with filmmakers, and personal memories of the nerve gas attack influenced the directing of the film.

See all the answers to our annual Sundance Editor Interviews here.

director: How and why did you end up editing your film? What were the factors and qualities that led to your being hired for this job?

Idea: Coincidentally, I knew both directors on other projects before starting this project. I met Ben Brown Kusama: Infinitya Sundance film I edited in 2018, and Chiaki Yanagimoto through my involvement as co-editor of the feature documentary Words Can’t Go There, which she produced. They both knew how I worked as an editor, and I was also bilingual in Japanese and English. They thought I would be a good fit for this project.

director: In terms of the progression of your film from its earliest assembly to your final cut, what were your goals as an editor? What elements of the film did you want to improve, or keep, or remove, or completely redo?

Idea: The film begins when a British journalist learns of a strange incident in Japan. In the course of his investigation, he learns that a cult group may be involved in various incidents.

When I started editing, my goal was to present the film through the journalist’s point of view, as if the audience was experiencing what actually happened in the film. However, as I continued with the editing process, I realized that there was a deeper story to be told. In this film, ordinary people are brainwashed by the leader of a cult group and become her followers, and the situation takes an unexpected turn. I’m sure the audience watching this movie will have thoughts like “Who’s to blame?” But I also believe that even those thoughts can be manipulated by someone else. That’s the biggest message I realized while editing this film. Faith is complex and dangerous, and it is possible to be led and brainwashed by other people’s ideas without realizing it. My ultimate goal was for this film to make the audience reflect on their faith and ideology.

director: How did you achieve these goals? What kinds of editing techniques, or processes, or screening feedback allowed this work to happen?

Idea: The filmmakers wrote a very solid script early on and were focused on building a narrative that relied as much on archival material as possible. I spent an enormous amount of time researching and finding the most effective archival materials and tried to use them in a way that conveyed the facts as much as possible and did not intentionally mislead the audience. Then I went through the scenes with the directors and we decided what to improve and what to remove.

director: As an editor, how did you get into the business and what influences have influenced your work?

Idea: To be honest, I never thought I would be a director or even an Emmy-nominated editor. I came to the US to study broadcasting and planned to return to Japan after graduation, but when I was a senior at San Diego State University I edited a short film that caught the attention of Kathleen Kennedy and premiered at the Directors Guild of America (DGA). This experience eventually led me to pursue a career in film editing in Los Angeles.

In the beginning, I worked as an assistant editor for Gaspard Noe Enter the blank and that of Isabel Coisset Map of the sounds of Tokyo, which were nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. After that, I started getting feature editing work.

I have been very fortunate to work with prominent directors such as Gaspard Noe, Penny Marshall and John Weinbach. They all influenced me a lot and these great directors helped me develop as a film editor.

director: What editing system did you use and why?

Idea: I used Premiere Pro for this project. It was a very efficient editing system due to the complexity of the archival material coming from all over the world in different size, frame rate and aspect ratio. I was able to edit the archive material on the fly.

director: What was the hardest scene to cut and why? And how did you do it?

Idea: What I found particularly challenging was the part where we focused deeply on each fact while being aware of the overall development of the story.

With a subject like this where religion and incidents are intertwined, the message conveyed through the film depends largely on how the archival footage is edited and how the story unfolds. For this reason, we paid special attention to this area and made sure that the message was conveyed in the best possible way.

director: Finally, after the process was over, what new meaning did the film take on for you? What did you find in the footage that you might not have initially seen, and how did your final understanding of the film differ from the understanding you started with?

Idea: I was in high school when this series of events happened. At the time, it all seemed like a big comedy as I watched people with just outlandish ideologies run for office and appear on television. But as I was exposed to the material, I was struck by the danger of ideology. We all live in a state of anxiety and we are all looking for answers.

Thought is a delicate thing, frighteningly unconscious, influenced by others, and infinitely expanding like the universe. We tend and cling to those who say they know what tomorrow will bring. One of the symbols of this is that many of the people who fell in love with this guru and religion were ordinary people with high academic education.

Finishing this film made me reconsider whether my own thoughts and ideas were really headed in the right direction. The clash of ideas with others creates division and even war.

I felt that it is only when we step back from this universe of ideas and focus on ourselves that we realize the beauty of life and the importance of connection with others.