lesbian – Page 10 – Windows on Worlds

For arguably his most famous film, 1964’s Manji (卍), Masumura returns to the themes of destructive sexual obsession which recur throughout his career but this time from the slightly more unusual angle of a same sex “romance”. However, this is less a tale of lesbian true love frustrated by social mores than it is a critique of all romantic entanglements which are shown to be intensely selfish and easily manipulated. Based on Tanizaki’s 1930s novel Quicksand, Manji is the tale of four would be lovers who each vie to be sun in this complicated, desire filled galaxy.

The story begins with a framing sequence in which Sonoko sits down with a male mentor to recount her sorry tale from some later vantage point. As she would have it, she was an unfilled, unhappy housewife taking a series of art classes when the principal of the college noticed that the face in her sketch of the Goddess of Mercy doesn’t look much like the model. Her technique is good though so he asks her why she gave her drawing a different face and who it might belong to. She tells him it’s merely an ideal and isn’t based on any real person. However, it does look quite like another, very beautiful, pupil at the school – Mitsuko, and a rumour quickly starts that the two women are lovers. Though barely knowing each other before, the pair laugh it off and decide to become friends anyway. Gradually, something more than friendship begins to grow but not everyone is being honest with each other and the added complication of the men in their lives is set to make the road even harder for Sonoko and Mitsuko’s love affair than it might otherwise be.

Sonoko narrates things from her perspective, though you get the feeling she may not be a completely reliable narrator. She seems shy, innocent, wounded though she speaks of her great tragedy with ease and a surprising frankness considering its sensitivity. The object of her obsession, Mitsuko, by contrast plays the innocent but also seems to know perfectly well what she’s doing. Manipulative in the extreme she plays each of the other three lovers off against each other in an attempt to become the centrifugal force in each of their lives. All things to all people, Mitsuko doesn’t seem to know what she wants, other than to be adored by anyone that’s around to adore her.

At the beginning of the film Mitsuko reveals that she’d been involved in marriage negotiations with a young man from a high profile family and she believes the rumours at the art school were started deliberately to try and disrupt her matrimonial ambitions. Sure enough that liaison falls through but she neglected to mention that she also has another fiancee, the slimy Watanuki, that she longs to be rid of but can’t seem to shake off. After Sonoko finds out about Watanuki, Mitsuko feigns not only a pregnancy but a bloody miscarriage to get her female lover to return to her. However, Watanuki fights back by trying to form a bilateral alliance with Sonoko to ensure Mitsuko doesn’t suddenly take up with a third party – he even gets her to sign a contract saying that she’ll help get Mitsuko to marry him and in return he won’t interfere with the two women’s relationship even once they’re married.

Sonoko’s husband completes the quartet, becoming increasingly frustrated by his wife’s infatuation with another woman, her coldness towards him and her growing boldness. Sonoko labels Kotaro cold and passionless and claims never to have enjoyed any of their married life together. She’s also been taking illegal birth control medication to avoid having children with him. Trying to be an understanding husband, Kotaro ends up tangled in a web of desire after being seduced by Mitsuko. For a time, the three form an unlikely romantic trio (with Watanuki hanging around disdainfully on the edges) though even between the three of them petty jealousies sap their strength and keep them all guessing as to the exact motives of the other pair.

Just like the four pronged arms of the manji itself, our four lovers lie in a tangled and twisted crisscross of desire, each trying to eclipse the other in the eyes of the radiant Mitsuko. Anything but merciful herself, Mitsuko adeptly plays on the insecurities of the others to keep them all dancing along to her tune. This is not a story of true love, but of misused desires, almost of the inverse of love where lust becomes a weapon of control and self satisfaction. Even at the end, Sonoko can’t decide if she’s been saved or betrayed and if what happened to her was love or a kind of madness. Whatever it was, each has paid a high price for their selfish pursuit of romance or dominance or whatever Mitsuko really represents for them (clearly not the reincarnation of the Goddess of Mercy after all). Years ahead of its time and still just as dark and fascinating as it always was, Manji is a sadly universal tale of the destructive power of love that plays almost like a ghost like story and is likely to haunt the memory long after the screen falls dark.

Manji is available with English subtitles on R2 UK DVD from Yume Pictures.

Original trailer (no subtitles)

Pedro Almodóvar’s debut film may not be as polished as his later work, in fact it may be a bit messy and very rough around the edges but the trademark energy, wit, and charm are all here, and in abundance. Pepi (Maura), is listening to some music and playing with a sticker book when a policeman calls because he’s been noticing her funny looking plants. Fearing prosecution Pepi offers him other compensations, but the policeman takes things further than she was thinking, raping her and ‘stealing’ the virginity which she’d been planning to sell! Seeking revenge, Pepi enlists the help of her friends in a punk group, including Bom (Alaska), to beat him up, but it doesn’t quite go to plan. Later Pepi runs into the rapist policeman’s wife, Luci, (Silva) and convinces her to give her knitting lessons, where she finds out that Luci is a masochist upset that her husband treats her like his mother. These are our three crazy girls trying to make it in La Movida. The film is extremely funny, though dipping a little into poor taste at times which may spoil it a little for some. Even if it’s not an especially well made film, and its lack of budget and complicated production circumstances are very much in evidence it’s still a lot of fun and it’s very interesting for fans of Almodóvar’s more recent work to look at where it all started.

After the film the BFI brought out the actress and singer Alaska (Bom) to talk and answer a few questions about her work on this film. She began by commenting on the film’s genesis, that she was offered the part because she was friends with some artists that were also friends of Almodóvar’s and had read the script and recommended her. As there was no money at all to make the film filming would take place when enough money had been raised to buy the negative, consequently the film took a few years to actually complete filming here and there when possible. Other than Carmen Maura and Felix Rotaeta most of the cast were not professional actors but friends and other people from that particular underground scene at the time. Someone from the audience asked if she’d influenced her character seeing as there was a superficial similarity there with Alaska’s also being in a punk group, to which she replied no. She provided her own clothes/look etc seeing as there wasn’t a costume designer or stylist or even any money for costumes but the character was already 100% scripted before she got the part and Almodóvar was very strict about sticking to his script and did not allow any deviations from it whatever. However she did mention that the seen with the postman was originally intended to just be ‘hello’ but that the actor decided to go for it, much to the consternation of the producer because they only had the right amount of film for what was already planned out, but Almodóvar liked it so it worked out in that instance. A few questions also raised the question of how Alaska felt at the time regarding the changes in Spanish Society, whether she felt herself to be living in momentous times, she replied that being only fifteen or so at the time she just didn’t really react to it in that way. She felt sure that other people did, but being so young she was just really living her life. Someone then asked how she felt about Spanish society at the moment and she answered that she was old enough now to see that each generation criticises the next one for failing to react enough but perhaps it was just a case of times moving on and general apathy. Another questions asked if the film was representative of the youth of Spain during La Movida but she she pointed out that no, this was a definite minority subscene of people that were seen as ‘weird’ and that maybe the film was adopted by youth culture a bit later but at that moment didn’t really reflect it at the time of making. The question of reviews and reaction to the film was also brought up and it was pointed out that the film was more or less panned everywhere, there was not a good reaction anywhere. The film was screened at a couple of festivals where it received an adverse reaction particularly from feminist critics. One of the last questions asked for clarification on the film’s message and purpose, which in Alaska’s opinion (one that she was sure Almodóvar would share) were nil. She felt that if there was a message or purpose it was that there wasn’t one, and if anything simply a statement of intent – we are here and this is who we are, this is how we choose to live. What better message could there possibly be?

Tag: lesbian

Manji (卍, Yasuzo Masumura, 1964)

Pepi, Luci, Bom… + Q&A with Alaska