A Police Investigation in 1950’s Japan
Like a film noir

On January 14, 1958, the disfigured and mutilated body of a man is discovered near Lake Sembako, northeast of Tokyo, triggering a police investigation that will go on for many months. Upon identifying the victim and due to the cruelty of the incident (the body, emasculated, had been doused with acid), a special section of the Tokyo police is created to reinforce the local police in the province of Ibaraki.

Photographer Yukichi Watabe (1924-1993) is authorized to document and follow the two inspectors throughout the investigation across working class Japan of the late 1950’s. At this time, Yukichi Watabe is a reporter who covers most of the historical and political events taking place in Tokyo, selling his photographs to such magazines as Gendai, Bungei Schunjun or Chuo Koron. His photographic style is documentary, in black and white.

Yukichi treats his subject with distance, in a narrative, almost cinematic way, like a film noir of the day. From the Special Office where the investigation begins to the tanneries quarter where one of the suspects had worked, the images follow one another, close-ups and long-shots in open frames. Yukichi Watabe photographs meetings, the doubts and the determination of the two inspectors, plunging us deep into the heart of the investigation. The case will be resolved only after a vast police campaign, conducted throughout Japan, compares a score of cases of unsolved murders. The assassin, found to be living under the identity of one of his victims, is finally unmasked and convicted of several crimes. He is sentenced to death and executed in 1965.
This joint publication Éditions Xavier Barral – LE BAL is remarkable. The choice of paper, the traditional Japanese binding (sempuyo) and the perfect fi nish, make this a beautiful book. Its publication has been made possible by the Wilson Center for Photography in London, which holds rights to the photos, and the exhibition, Tokyo-e, at LE BAL, in Paris.

A Criminal Investigation, Yukichi Watabe, Xavier Barral – LE BAL, € 45

by Benoît Fougeirol