Terayama’s Pastoral Hide and Seek is a post modern meditation on the nature of truth and memory. Totally surreal, a man’s childhood populated by bizarre circus troupe, nuns with eye patches, strange fascinations with clocks. Then the director gets fed up with the deceptiveness of his own vision, so then he tuns up inside his own childhood and tries to mess about with it. Odd but oddly affecting
Matsumoto once said that if Funeral Parade of Roses was filmed in white, this was filmed in black. It’s certainly a very bleak and unsettling film with its dreamlike horror and sense of inevitability. The film begins with a sort of vision sequence where the protagonist comes home to find a tangled mess of body parts, followed by bodies, followed by the lifeless corpse of the woman he loves and a man hanging from the ceiling. Later he is visited by a former servant who’s arrived with the news that 47 of his fellow samurai (yep, THAT 47) plan to rise against their cruel master and that his former serfs and peasant folk have clubbed together and raised the money for him to take his rightful place alongside them.
Overcome with joy and relief Gengobe takes the money and pledges to go to the town the next morning and join his comrades. However, he’s also gotten himself mixed up with a courtesan who has other ideas and urges Gengobe to spend this money on her freedom so that they might marry. At first Gengobe sticks to his duty but fearing for the courtesan’s life he gives in and squanders the money on her. Of course, as it turns out there’s more to this woman and her, er pimp?, than first thought. Gengobe has been conned out of the money so many people made big sacrifices to get him and now there’s no way he’ll be able to fulfill his samurai duties. Hurt, humiliated, ruined, Gengobe has nothing left to live for and this pushes him into a dangerous mania for revenge that trails behind him a wake of scattered corpses.
Chilling. Somehow the atmosphere of this film is so completely unsettling you feel the cold rising through your bones just sitting in the cinema seats. There’s no other word for the world of this film than hell. It’s not a horror film, it’s not the violence or the blood that’s upsetting, it’s the sheer oppressive atmosphere of despair. A claustrophobia of fate. It’s this that stays with you, an odd feeling of inevitable doom.
Not a pleasant a film to watch then, but a very impressive one.
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.
Silence Has No Wings follows the journey of a butterfly from it’s larval phase in Nagasaki to it’s eventual fate in a small boy’s butterfly net on Hokkaido. Well, it’s much more complicated than that. The butterfly is also deeply associated with a female atomic bomb survivor whilst at the same time becoming the centre of a yakuza/triad disagreement. The film also mixes several styles and genres, at one moment a documentary – stock footage/taped interview of bomb survivors, another time a surreal gangster comedy or a social comment and even romantic melodrama. It’s truly a film that defies explanation and deserves to be seen
Kenji Mizoguchi’s Sansho the Bailiff is one of those films that has many times been cited as among the greatest ever made. Based on an ancient folktale, Mizoguchi places the action during the Heian era where a feudal lord is being stripped of his position for daring to speak out about brutal treatment of the peasants. The lord will be exiled but his wife and children will travel to stay with relatives until sent for. Parting from his children he entrusts to them a statue of the goddess Kanon (goddess of Mercy) and instructs them to remember to show mercy, be kind even if it causes you personal pain.
Some time later the mother and her two children set out to join the father with only one servant and no resources to help them get there. Having failed to find lodging in the town (taking in travelers has been banned because of the bandit/slaver problem) they prepare to make camp in the woods. An old lady priestess offers them food and lodging for the night and apparently knows a quicker way to their destination if they’re prepared to travel by sea. Of course, it turns out that the old lady’s motives were far from altruistic and the family are quickly separated, the mother and female servant in one boat and the children dragged away elsewhere. The slavers have great difficulty finding a buyer for these wealthy children, being so small they won’t be as productive, especially considering their background makes them unused to physical labour. Eventually the children are sold to the notorious Sansho, who shows no mercy or consideration for the children’s youth and is determined to get his money’s worth.
As time moves on the children struggle to adapt to their new conditions, the girl clinging to memories of the past and the boy wishing to forget. He casts aside his father’s teachings and seeks to become closer to Sansho until the illness of another prisoner, coupled with the echo of his mother’s voice, reminds him of his better nature and sets him off on his path to redemption.
Sansho the Bailiff is a morality tale about the importance of compassion and of standing up for what is right over what is expected. Cruel men like Sansho, who can regard people as objects and are without the ability to understand the point of view of those who might raise questions, are much in favour with the feudal lords who see nothing except their profits. The profit of the lords must be maintained, those who make suggestions that might interfere with those are removed. Sansho is valued because his turnover is so high, more humane procedures would necessarily reduce this and so are out of the question. Who cares about a bunch of lowborn ‘cattle’? they aren’t like us, they are not us, so we need not concern ourselves with their lives, their feelings or their souls.
When Zushio has committed himself to the path of mercy, vowing to bring down this economy of exploitation, he again finds himself effectively powerless. Although he has achieved the necessary status, the will of the other lords will always win out. Taking drastic action wins him a small victory in the immediate area, but it’s not clear how long this will last or if any permanent change will occur. He’s no better off as a lord than he was with Sansho, he’s still a slave just in a nicer cage. So abandoning his position he sets off in search of his mother.
Finally mother and son are reunited, but the reunion is bittersweet. Zushio exclaims that he could have come here as a fine, important man and taken her away back to the life she once knew, but instead he kept to his father’s teachings and has nothing. She replies that she’s sure that if he had not obeyed they would never have met again. In the end their only victory is to have survived and found each other, but it’s the victory of the pure soul.
Ecstasy of the Angels
Koji Wakamatsu’s 1972 discourse on the nature of political activism is an unpleasant film that perhaps owes more to the director’s background in pink eiga than to any concrete argument. Despite being choc full of (explicit) sex and violence it’s incredibly boring and ponderous. It may be the case that I’m not well versed enough in the period but I really struggled to understand what the point of this film was. It seemed really very dated, the directorial choices (deliberately?) primitive and the acting terrible.
Lost Lovers
This was a lot better than Ecstasy of the Angels. A young, disillusioned pole vaulting champion dressed up like Jimi Hendrix and definitely overfond of his kit bag wanders aimlessly around Japan until he meets a deaf and dumb couple who become his companions. It’s an entertaining film about the nature of communication, romance and the treatment of outsiders.
Sawako (Hikari Mitsushima) has been living in Tokyo for five years. She has a part time job at a toy company as an assistant, mostly making tea but doing any other slightly unpleasant menial tasks her petulant boss decides to throw her. She has a quite useless boyfriend who once worked at the toy company as a designer but has resigned (or was asked to leave following a total flop of his newest toy with a toddler focus group) in order to lead an ‘eco life’. His main hobbies appear to be knitting and recycling. A divorcée he has a daughter who he looks after, but isn’t terribly interested in and keeps referring to Sawako as her ‘new mother’. Into this fairly dismal life is thrown the bombshell that Sawako’s father is seriously ill in hospital and it’s thought she ought to return home. Despite her protestations that she hasn’t been home for five years for a good reason and has no intention of going now, the boyfriend somehow convinces her to go as part of a naive plan to live on the land in an ‘eco’ way. As it turns out there are a few good reasons Sawako didn’t want to go home, it seems she’s none too popular there. Eventually ending up running her father’s clam packing business in his stead, these are the problems she will have to overcome if she’s to lead a more satisfying life.
Sawako Decides (kawa no soko kara konichiwa) is a decidedly bittersweet comedy about learning to accept yourself for what you are and doing your best with it. The humour is quirky and off the wall as might be expected, but mostly very true to life and the film is very funny. Unlike a most light comedies this one manages to be quite emotionally engaging and the audience quickly empathises with Sawako and her situation and is eager to see her move away from her disappointment. It’s a very charming film with an usual message delivered in an usual way, well worth looking at.
Pigs and Battleships, Shohei Imamura’s 1961 absurd portrait of the transformation of a small fishing port during the American occupation is a biting indictment of postwar society. Kinta (Hiroyuki Nagato), the young would be Yakuza, is excited when he is given responsibility over the gang’s latest asset – a herd of pigs, which they plan to fatten up and sell back to the Americans at an inflated price. His girlfriend, Haruko (Jitsuko Yoshimura), is unhappy about his connection to gang and constantly urges him to get a proper job. Kinta, however is unwilling to do this because he doesn’t want to end up like his father, sacked from his long time factory job after becoming ill, or be just another ordinary low age worker living hand to mouth. He seems to want to be something, someone more than that but also seems unable to do anything about it other than follow the gang. He likes the respect and the feeling of being the big man that the gang affords him but is unable to see that it’s illusionary, his status is only that of expendable fall guy in a petty gang of punks. Haruko’s family on the other hand are unhappy with her relationship with Kinta and constantly urge her to become the kept mistress of a wealthy American who’s shown an interest in her. For obvious reasons this isn’t something Haruko is very interested in doing but her mother’s quite violent instructions are becoming harder and harder to defy. Eventually Kinta agrees to go with Haruko to an uncle in another town who might be able to find them work, after he’s completed one final gang related task which he hopes will provide them with money to take with them. However, predictably things do not go to plan and the young couple’s hopes are frustrated.
There are only really two things going on in this town, the pigs and the battleships. Everyone is completely (and quite desperately) dependent on the Americans, they drive the entire town’s economy. The red light district in which the film is set is dedicated to catering for the foreigners on shore leave, and most of the women in the picture are engaging in either casual or outright prostitution, encouraged by their petty yakuza boyfriends or families. Even our heroine Haruko at one point, angry with Kinta but also with her family, decides to give this a go with disastrous results which leads to one of the most masterful shots of the film – the much praised spinning top shot which perfectly articulates the chaos and horror of that terrible situation. The entire town has become like pigs running toward a feeding trough, the final scene of the town’s women running to greet the newly arrived ship, desperate for attention and the material benefits that attention might bring. The only hope in this final scene is with Haruko finally leaving her overbearing mother, defiantly marching straight ahead through this crowd of baying women to start again in a new town, with a proper honest job away from all these corrupting influences.
Pigs and Battleships is a masterful film and in fact quite darkly humourous, highly recommended for anyone interested in the history of Japan or Japanese Cinema. The Blu Ray release from Eureka’s Masters of Cinema series is top notch, the picture quality is mostly excellent as is the soundtrack (the disc comes with optional English subtitles which are also very good).
Also provided is Imamura’s debut feature for Nikkatsu, Stolen Desire, the story of a middle class young man (also played by Hiroyuki Nagato) who ends up joining a traveling Kabuki (though leaning more and more towards burlesque elements) group, not so far away from the directors own youthful experiences. This is a more typical Nikkatsu B Movie, a ribald comedy with jokes about randy peasants, vain/difficult actors, misplaced love and the sort of tensions present within a traveling group of artists who’ve hit upon slightly low times. However there are the uniquely Immamura elements that lift this above the rest, the documentary like opening for example and the genuine warmth with with he paints the earthy peasants in all their unbridled vitality. This is the first time this film has been available commercially available with English subtitles in the West and is definitely well worth seeing, its transfer, whilst not quite as strong as that of Pigs and Battleships is certainly very good. There is the odd cut or damage in the frame and the image is certainly a bit softer but it’s still an excellent transfer given the nature of the material. Both releases are accompanied by a booklet containing essays by Tony Rayns about each film which are very useful and informative. This is another fantastic release from MOC, very much deserving of a place in every collection. Fantastic.
Windows on Worlds 