Side: A features athletes, including a marathon runner who brought her baby and a Syrian refugee. Side: B depicts the executives of the organizing committee, staff members and citizens.
Kawase said to have shot 5,000 hours of footage.
The decision to postpone the Games for a year and citizens protesting about holding them amid a public health crisis have caused the Tokyo Olympics to be rocked by the novel coronaviruses.
The DVD package states that the documentary is designed to convey everything that happened inside and outside event venues for future generations. It's possible that it runs more than four hours when the two segments are combined.
But there is something that even Kawase didn't see and record: the deep darkness of corrupt money linked to vested interests over the Games.
No sooner had the investigation into a bribery scandal concluded when new allegations emerged about bid-rigging for test events involving the organizing committee.
The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office investigators have searched the offices of advertising agencies over the allegations.
In Side: B there is an impressive scene in which Nomura Mansai, an acclaimed actor in kyogen, speaks about the difficulties of carrying on a cultural tradition.
Nomura was tasked with orchestrating the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics and the Olympics, a Japanese culture, but he later resigned from the chief executive's post.
He said that when someone is involved in traditional culture for a long time, various elements become attached to it, such as authority and vested interests. But they should not be separated from the original spirit of the traditional culture. Nomura s words now sound like a warning to the organizing committee and Dentsu Inc., the advertising giant implicated in the Olympic scandals.
The documentary, if it is designed to convey everything, needs another segment, Side: C, to portray individuals and organizations driven by greed and money.
The third segment could be much longer than the first two.
Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that covers a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. The column, written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, provides useful insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.