Imamura’s A Man Vanishes starts out as a documentary surrounding the disappearance of a plastics salesman but eventually becomes a discourse on truth, reality and cinema. We begin in documentary fashion by paying a visit to the police station and having the details of the missing man related to us. We then hear from the man’s fiancée who it seems is very keen to find him, and his family who are worried but also hurt and disappointed. It transpires that Oshima, the absent centre of the film, had many secrets those closest to him did not know. He had previously been suspended from his place of work for embezzlement, though the money had been repaid and the matter settled. He was also a drinker and according to his friends had been expressing doubts about his planned marriage, either because he did not want to marry or because he disapproved of his future sister-in-law’s supposedly ‘immoral’ lifestyle. There is also a rumour he’d been having an affair with a waitress which resulted in a pregnancy.
All this information uncovered and still no real clue as to Oshima’s whereabouts, Imamura takes the bold step of deciding to put the fiancée on television. After this things start to change, the fiancee seems to have lost her zeal to find her intended and, as it turns out, has developed feelings for the interviewer on the documentary (who is actually an actor). Shortly after this they visit a kind of spirit medium who claims the future sister-in-law has poisoned Oshima and disposed of the body because she too was in love with him and did not wish to share.
This ultimately leads to a showdown in a tea house in which the fiancée confronts her sister with the evidence so far and seems unwilling to believe her denials. Except at the climactic moment Imamura orders the set to come down around them and we see they’re just in a pretend tea house room in the middle of a soundstage. This ‘reality’ was fabricated, and other filmmakers will come here to make their fictional truths or untruthful realities. We thought we were watching fact, but it was a construction.
The final scene of the film then follows this up further, Imamura announces what we’re watching is a reconstruction, a fiction, as a man swears he saw Oshima going up the stairs with the sister, which she flatly denies. Another witness then shows up and reaffirms his testimony about having seen Oshima and the sister, and the debate continues with some of the participants becoming quite irate. Can we believe anything we’re seeing here, what or how much of this is truth? What is truth anyway, what is reality?
Was there a man who vanished, are these the people in the his life? If they are, are they themselves or have they begun to play versions of themselves more suited to film? Imamura later said this film might more rightly have been called ‘When a Woman Becomes an Actress’, and it is true that you can see a definite change in the fiancée after her television appearance. Or can you, is it just the way Imamura presents it or has the change really taken places since the woman became a ‘character’ watched by the TV audience? Just as we’ve been unable to reconstruct a accurate picture of Oshima through the descriptions of those who knew him, our vision of the major players, the fiancée and her sister is also clouded by Imamura’s presence.
Imamura’s assertions that objective documentary making is pointless and that greater truth can be displayed through fictional film making are carried right the way through the film. What you largely have are ideas which are then reconstructed by the film maker in the editing suite. It’s a document of real people and real lives but only from one perspective. Fictional film making, in Imamura’s view, is better able to articulate human truths than this patching together of material which cannot be a fully accurate representation.
A Man Vanishes is one of Imamura’s most intriguing films but nevertheless has been unavailable with English subtitles for a long time. Thankfully Masters of Cinema will be releasing a new version on DVD in a couple of months the viewing of which will, hopefully, help to clear things up a little (but then again, maybe not).
An inverted retelling of Sophocle’ Oedipus, Funeral Parade of Roses has become a landmark in Gay Japanese Cinema. Eddie (geddit?), a transvestite living in Tokyo makes her money at a gay bar and has begun an affair with this boss. This has created an awkward situation with the boss’s ‘wife’ who runs the club and has become increasingly jealous and antagonistic towards Eddie. Something from Eddie’s past is also haunting her and will turn out to have major repercussions for herself and others.
Funeral Parade of Roses is notable for its explicit detailing of 1960s gay life in Tokyo. Eddie and her friends have wild parties where they take drugs and discuss avant-garde films from America whilst watching distorted pictures of the student riots on the TV. The films even breaks with its narrative to interview various people, including a couple of the the actors, about gay life.
This is just one of many of the post-modern techniques that Matsumoto employs, often breaking up the narrative with vox pop sessions, inserted signs etc. He often repeats scenes or sections of scenes and sometimes breaks them off only to return at exactly that point later on. The overall timeline of the plot only becomes clear near the end when you’re able to piece these scenes together into a coherent narrative. An important and influential film, Funeral Parade of Roses is a must for fans of Japanese Cinema.
Human Bullet (Nikudan) is a powerfully absurd antiwar satire. Set in the very last days of the second world war, when most can see the writing on the wall but don’t want to admit that their situation is hopeless, the film attempts to capture the bewilderment and confusion as people start to comprehend the situation. An unnamed soldier of about twenty years old is training to be an officer and is repeatedly subjected to ridiculous tasks and ideas sent from high command.
Whilst in charge of the food store, it’s discovered that three packets of biscuits have gone missing. Whilst being question about this the soldier remarks that himself and the other men have become cows, that is they’ve learnt to ruminate – a skill which he then demonstrates to the non plussed superior officer. They stole the biscuits because their rations are pitiful and they lack the strength for their training. Pointing out the obvious that this warehouse is full of food whilst the men are collapsing from malnutrition, the superior angrily tells him the food is for the final battle. Pointing out that there won’t be a final battle if they’ve all died of starvation further annoys the officer and our hero is reprimanded for his defeatist attitude by being forbidden to wear any clothing until further notice.
This further notice only comes when the squad is abruptly designated an anti-tank suicide squad, they will basically run into tanks whilst carrying explosives. Given one day of freedom before being expected to make the ultimate sacrifice, the soldier finds love after a few wrong turns and a strange meeting with an armless bookseller (a noticeably odd late performance from Chisu Ryu). He also develops a strange friendship with some orphaned children and ‘saves’ a suicidal woman.
Alas his orders are abruptly changed again and having failed to meet up with his unit he ends up, in the most absurd image of the film, a man in a barrel strapped to a torpedo. When you hear about lost Japanese soldiers years later not knowing the war is over and you wonder how that can happen, well it’s because of things like this. Aimlessly drifting and bemoaning the ridiculousness of his situation, his feelings of helplessness and bewilderment perfectly sum up the events of the summer of 1945.
Okamoto’s trademark dark humour prevent this from being as bleak as the subject matter might suggest, although the finality of its ending is still incredibly powerful. Like Catch-22 or Dr Strangelove the film beautifully sends up the absurdity of war, and especially of an authoritarian win at all costs philosophy. It’s a shame this film isn’t currently available on DVD anywhere with English subtitles as it’s a very unusual film even by the standards of the Japanese Wave. Human Bullet is unforgettable and really deserves to be better known in the West.
This is one of my most favourite films. Theatre critic and prominent anti-marriage advocate Mortimer (Cary Grant) has just married nextdoor’s vicar’s daughter, Elaine (Priscilla Lane). Understandably embarrassed, Mortimer is desperately trying to keep the marriage under wraps but nevertheless returns home to let his sweet maiden aunts know the good news. Unfortunately he’s not the only one with a surprise, as he discovers opening the window seat. Believing his uncle Teddy, who is under the delusion that he is Teddy Roosevelt, has finally gone too far and harmed someone, he confronts his aunts and suggests they look into finding a better place for Teddy. Casually they reveal the body is ‘one of theirs’ and our whole macabre farce kicks off. Oh and did I mention Mortimer’s sadistic older brother Jonathan, who’s had plastic surgery to change identities but wound up looking like Karloff in Frankenstein, the doctor who did that to him and their own guest they’re bringing to this bizarre gathering? Not to mention the police turning up, one of whom has theatrical ambitions! Hilarious!
I often wonder, how much of its impact does Psycho lose given that a modern audience, even if they somehow have managed to avoid knowing anything about the plot, does not relate to Janet Leigh in the same way the audience of 1960 would have. If you don’t know Janet Leigh is supposed to be the ‘star’ of the movie, is her early exit all that shocking? and if it’s not all that shocking, does the film feel unbalanced? does the viewer feel they’ve missed something, are they confused they’ve spent so long with this character that’s just disappeared and the focus has moved on entirely?
I feel as if I should be able to answer some of these questions, after all it’s not as if I saw this in a cinema myself in 1960, but I honestly don’t remember the first time I saw it. I must have been quite young, probably too young and like most other people I must have seen it on the television. I’m almost certain I would have watched it with my mother, who probably explained to me who Janet Leigh was and that she was the ‘star’ of the film and that it was odd, therefore, that she was only in the first third or so. I think I probably did think Marion was going to reappear at some point, or be not really dead, just because this started out as her story so it didn’t really make sense that it quickly became someone else’s. I wonder if everyone else felt this way too, or if ‘this’ followed by ‘that’ just felt a natural progression to them?
Jim Jarmusch’s 1986 buddy/prison/road/existentialist fairytale may prove too slow for some but those who can wait it out are richly rewarded. Three men end up in prison, two through misfortune and the other through general ineptitude. They form an unlikely friendship, luckily one of the men knows a way out of the prison and their strange journey begins. That’s about all I can tell you the rest you’d just have to see for yourself…
This article will discuss the plot of Les Diaboliques in full and therefore contain major plot spoilers
Now that Les Diaboliques has been been released on Blu Ray, twice, once by Criterion (Region A) and once by Arrow (Region Free, UK) it seems like an appropriate time to revisit one of cinema’s most enduring thrillers. It might be thought that the film would seem dated or that the constant imitations and ought right theft of the central plot twist in every prime time mystery show of the last fifty years would leave a modern audience unimpressed, feeling they’ve seen all of this before. However, on seeing the recently restored print at the BFI a few months ago, it was most reassuring (and completely wonderful) to hear several disbelieving gasps as Nicole and Michel congratulate themselves on the successful completion of their plot, followed by amused discussion of the young boy’s curious reacquisition of his slingshot at the very end. Les Diaboliques remains a perfectly plotted crime thriller, complete with some of the most disturbing imagery ever captured on celluloid.
So then, the plot. As the film opens, we meet Christina (Vera Clouzot) – The Wife, and Nicole (Simone Signoret) – The Mistress, who is wearing dark glasses after, it seems, receiving a black eye from the film’s apparent villain, Michel (Paul Meurisse) – The Husband. Oddly, Christina seems very concerned about Nicole’s injury and seeks to comfort her, and this strange camaraderie between wife and mistress is remarked upon by two of the other teachers of the boarding school at which the central trio live and work. Later on we see the women discussing a plan to get rid of Michel, who has obviously been causing both of them not a little pain. The plan goes off without too much trouble, but then, the body disappears and Michel’s presence begins to make itself felt in unexpected ways….
of course this is only the beginning of the plot we think we see throughout the film (and you might want to look away now if you ignored the spoiler warning and blatant mention in the first paragraph) as it transpires that Michel really is the villain of this piece and along with Nicole has concocted a diabolical plot involving his wife’s fragile heart, her religious mentality, and his own faked death. The scene where he rises out of the bath tub, with those strange (and painful looking) dead man contact lenses is one of the most iconic in cinema history – truly chilling. However, Michel and Nicole have not counted on the perspicacity of the retired policeman Fichet who is there to rob them of their final triumph. Not content with this masterful plot twist, Clouzot seeks to tease us again, although we see Christina die, we are presented with the mystery of the small boy and his slingshot, which he says was just returned to him by the headmistress, who we know to be dead. This is the same small boy who was accused of lying about seeing the ‘deceased’ Michel earlier in the film, whom we now know to have been telling the truth. So, is Christine really dead? is her ghostly presence inhabiting the school? or did Fichet manage to save her life after all? or is the boy lying this time? We’ll never know, Clouzot just wanted to leave us with that one last note of uncertainty to completely mess with our heads once and for all.
It is Christina, whose apparent death we finally witness, that we’ve sympathised with all the way through. We can see right from the beginning that she’s terrorised by her cruel husband Michel – carrying on with another woman right in front of her, forcing her to eat rotten fish, forcing her off screen where it’s implied he will beat and rape her. We are right behind her desire to kill Michel, we can see that this is the only way out of an unbearable situation for her, and we are eager to release from that torment. She can’t divorce him as she’s a strict Catholic, and he likely wouldn’t consent to a divorce because he’s dependent on her money. She owns the school but he controls it. We also sympathise with Nicole who it seems is under some sort thrall to Michel although he also beats her and she isn’t tied to him in any way, perhaps we buy into her desire to eliminate Michel in revenge for the humiliation she has suffered. Nicole is the driving force behind the initial plan convincing Christina to go through with it, forcing her hand when she wavers. However, it is Nicole who ‘appears’ to crumble as things start to go wrong, for a brief period Christina becomes the dominant woman and Nicole ‘panics’ as the relationship between the two women becomes fraught and they both goad each other to go the police. Though of course Nicole’s actions here are completely calculated to place further stress on Christina, she obviously is fully aware of what’s really going on. In fact the character of Nicole is one of the most intriguing aspects of the film, she must be the most diabolical of all the characters – appearing to comfort and console Christina whilst leading her to her death so that she can have the loathsome Michel and all of Christina’s money. Why she thinks Michel will be any more well disposed to her than he’s been to Christina is anyone’s guess, but then perhaps she really is in that much thrall to him.
Indeed the relationship between the two women both one of the most central aspects of the film and one of the most ambiguous. In the novel which served as the source material for the screenplay (Celle Qui N’Etait Plus by Boileau & Narcejac who also wrote the inspiration for Hitchcock’s Vertigo) the plot twist is reversed. A man and his mistress plot to kill his wife, but haunted by the crime he eventually kills himself and it turns out that the two women are lovers and have plotted together to get rid of the husband, and in the novel they get away with it. Clouzot, probably rightly, assuming such a scandalous affair would never get through the censors, and probably wouldn’t be accepted by the audience even if it did altered the original plot to a slightly more conventional situation. However, throughout the film, the two women appear very close, they’re very tactile and are often posed like a couple, see the way Nicole holds Christina’s arms when persuading her to call Michel in Niort and at several other points in the film. They are seen to share a bed on more than one occasion and at least once they get back to the school there’s no logistical reason for them to do so. The scene where Nicole decides to leave also resembles a typical thwarted lovers parting scene, Nicole’s ‘Do You Hate Me?’ is particularly potent. Is Christina telling her to go because she’s going to confess, or because she doesn’t trust her anymore? Were the two women lovers, is this another motive for the murder of Michel? and of course, this is looking even worse for the already pretty awful looking Nicole, was she sleeping with both of them? Did she like Christina at all, did she have some remorse for what was about to happen? Who can say, but she does seem fairly ecstatic afterwards.
Clouzot’s typically bleak world view is very much in evidence here. Christina aside (and even she’s a murderess, albeit an unwilling one) no one comes out of this film looking particularly good. Does the policeman really let Christina die as punishment for her part in the hypothetical crime? Perhaps he has a plan in place to save her afterwards and whip her out as a sensational witness at the trial but even so it’s quite an ordeal he leaves her to suffer. You also have to wonder why no one is investigating standards at this school, did none of the children complain about the rotten fish, how much are their parents paying for this sort of thing? but I digress. Clouzot succeeds in piling up the tension until it becomes almost unbearable by the end, this has to be one of the most successful suspense films ever made. Even if the twist appears obvious to the modern viewer the final scenes still succeed in being genuinely thrilling!
As for the Blu Rays, as far as picture quality goes Criterion is the winner as the Arrow is slightly cropped and although both releases look occasionally soft the higher bit rate on the Criterion really pays off. As for extras both offer very interesting supplements, I would probably advocate the Arrow as the video introduction from Ginette Vincendeau is indispensable (and much longer than expected!) and the full length commentary by Susan Heywood more informative than the selected scene commentary provided by Criterion. Though the introduction provided by Criterion is also very good and the short piece by Kim Newman is very interesting as well. Fans of the film who have the ability to play A coded discs would benefit from double dipping on both editions, but as always your choice is pretty much decided for you by your region of residence and both have their merits. Les Diaboliques remains a prime example of the thriller genre and a must see for anyone interested in psychological horror.
Masahiro Shinoda’s 1964 film Pale Flower (Kawaita Hana) is a total break from the romanticised yakuza films that had been common prior to its release. Heavily influenced both by American Film Noir and by the French New Wave, Shinoda’s gangster underworld is dark and empty. There maybe pretty girls and oh so shiny fast cars but these yakuza spend their off time in bowling alleys and in other ordinary daily pursuits not so different from your average salaryman. As the film begins we meet recently released Muraki (Ryo Ikebe) who is traveling back to Tokyo having completed a three year sentence for committing a murder ordered by his gang boss. We hear him reflect less than fondly on his crime, but at the same time wonder why he’s been punished for ‘slaughtering one of these stupid animals’ which crowd around him, seemingly barely alive. On arrival he pays a visit a to an old girl friend who seems to be much more fond of him than he is of her. Then he goes gambling and sees the young, beautiful but perhaps just as empty as he is, Saeko (Mariko Kaga). Presumably from a wealthy background, Saeko spends her nights gambling vast sums of money, little caring if she wins or loses, living only for the brief thrill of chance. Together Mariko and Saeko wander aimlessly through night time Tokyo desperately trying to find some kind of meaning to this chaos but pushing each other ever further down into a spiral of thrill and transgression.
Shinoda’s direction and Masao Kosugi’s photography are really fantastic here. The Noirish light and shadows perfectly depict this murky, uncertain and claustrophobic world the protagonists are constrained by and totally establish this mood of alienation which is so central to the film. This is further assisted by the wonderful score provided by Toru Takemitsu. Relying heavily on dissonance and incorporating exaggerated or found sounds – tap dancing over the sound of the cards for example, the score brilliantly brings out the underlying menace of this environment. Indeed, the sound design is one of the most distinctive attributes of this film and is extraordinarily important in establishing the mood. The final set piece accompanied by a section from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas is absolutely pitch perfect and has obviously become hugely influential.
This new blu ray release from the Criterion Collection is absolutely stunning, the picture quality and clarity are excellent. The contrast in the black and white photography is beautiful to behold. The remastered lossless sound is also richly delivered, with no problems of audibility. This fascinating film is a must for any fan of Japanese Cinema, Film Noir or New Wave. Highly recommended.
