Some Japanese films for February.

This Transient Life (1970), directed by Akio Jissoji. This is the first of Jossoji’s Buddhist trilogy, and it is a blend of softcore pornography and art film. The art film aspect is writ large with a baroque delivery of various camera swirls and angles and movements that seemingly try to outdo Welles’s flashes in Citizen Kane. We also have visual and aural allusions to the likes of Antonionni, Bergman, Godard, Ozu and others. The soundtrack is, at times cacophonous, at times mellifluous (Bach has never sounded more strident), and constantly delivering an array of sharp sounds. Then we have the story, a story of transgression. Masao (Ryo Tamura), only son of a wealthy business man, does not know what to do with his life. Meanwhile, his older sister Yuri (Mitchiko Tsukasa) keeps rejecting the suitors her parents arrange for her. Mom and Pop go on a trip to Tokyo, Masao and Yuri cavort like kids, wearing masks. Masao becomes rather too aggressive and ends up raping his sister. She decides she enjoys the experience and we have a taboo relationship well under way. One day, a local monk sees the brother and sister engaged in sexual activity in the woods. Oh boy. This cannot end well, methinks. Well, it ends with a giant carp dug from the seaside sand by Masao and his deceased grandmother (yes "deceased"). The carp has ‘eaten’ all the people Masao has engaged with, and turned them into stones. Of course, we have the Buddhist content. At one point Masao apprentices to a master carver of Buddhist statues; and yes, he seduces the master’s wife, and then invites the master to share the bed. The master dies in flagrante delicto and his son also dies trying to kill Masao. You can see that lots goes on here, lots of transgressive stuff. I’d like to say that all this coheres into a compelling story, but, alas, this is not the case, for me at least. Sex and death served up raw is what we have. Not knowing anything about Buddhism, I cannot comment on this aspect of the film. The film does have its interest, but it will not be for everyone.

 

Mandala (1971), directed by Akio Jissoji. The second entry in the Buddhist trilogy is another adventure in eros and thanatos, here presented as eroticism and agriculture. The story, such as it is, concerns student unrest and a search for utopia in a cult based on not much more than rape and voyeurism. Once again, we have the roving camera and kinky angles. Early in the film the sets are reminiscent of what we see in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and this held some interest for me. The relentless misogyny, however, is wearisome and distasteful. This is a film easy to dislike. From a technical standpoint, it does hold some interest, but the ongoing rape of young women, the running down a beach, the cavorting in sand, the pseudo-philosophizing of the characters, their vapidity, stupidity, and cruelty are difficult to take. Allusions to the usual gathering of French New Wave directors, and even to the venerable Ozu are not enough to lift this film from the sludge.

 

Poem (1972), directed by Akio Jissoji. This is the third film in Jissoji’s Buddhist trilogy. We still have elements of the pinku genre, but mercifully, this element has fewer moments here than in the previous two films. Shot in stark black and white, Poem tells the story of Jun, houseboy to the eldest son of the Moriyama family. Jun is interested in calligraphy, and he spends his off time making rubbings in a nearby cemetery. Calligraphy and death order Jun’s life. He lives an austere life, refusing to make a trip with his boss to the family home in the mountains because it is not his day off. The filming here seems to me an attempt on the part of Jissoji to render the look of the film calligraphic. From this perspective, what we have is a poetic revery. Things move along slowly and moodily. The family is on the verge of dislocation and dissolution. Poor Jun tries his best to save the family, but he fails. I am a viewer who is unfamiliar with the traditions at work here; for a viewer such as I, the experience is largely visual, although the soundtrack does have Jissoji’s interest in sounds of various kinds, and Vivaldi is also a prominent part of what we hear. All in all, this is quite stunning.

Boiling Point (1990), directed by Takeshi Kitano (aka Beat Kitano). This is Kitano’s second feature film, and it lacks the flare of his later work, although it does have the later work’s violence and absurdity, and even a bit of the later work’s visual sense. The plot has two gormless friends who play on the same baseball team and work at the same gas station getting involved with the yakuza. You can imagine that things do not work out well. Beat Kitano appears as a psychotic killer who delights, in a deadpan manner, hitting people, raping people, playing the voyeur, and generally going through life treating others in an ugly and unpleasant way. What the crazy action might mean is anyone’s guess. I am not sure of the baseball metaphor, or is it a metaphor? Perhaps the whole thing is a pile of feces since the film begins and ends with the main character, Masaki (Yurei Yanagi), in an outhouse, suggesting the entire action was what Masaki daydreamed while sitting on the toilet. I guess this is Kitano learning his trade, experimenting with things visual and things violent and things wonky and perverse. His misogyny is difficult to take.

 

Hana-bi (1997), directed by Takeshi Kitano. Imagine Ozu crossed with Fukasaku and you will have an idea what Hana-bi is like. We have the silence, the spatial intensity, often empty spaces, the serenity of faces, some of the compositions, and dislocations in time we might associate with Ozu, coupled with the violence and yakuza gangs and quick cutting of Fukasaku. Take just one strand of this layered film, the shooting of police officer Horibe (Ren Osugi). The shooting is quick and violent, leaving Horibe in a wheelchair. He has thoughts of suicide while he tries to come to terms with his new life as a paraplegic. Someone suggests he take up painting and he does, painting, for the most part, figures with flowers for heads set in bright primary-coloured backgrounds. The wheelchair reminds us of life’s struggle; the paintings remind us of life’s possibilities. Together they remind us the film has something to do with life pitted against art, and art focusing life. The film is awash in significant visual content: feral cats, the sea and sky, paintings, colour, hallways, sunglasses, fire, a kite, faces, snow, blood, sand, cherry trees. The pacing is, for the most part, measured. We follow Nishi (Beat Kitano, aka Takeshi Kitano), a detective, whose child has died and whose wife is dying of leukemia. To make matters worse, his partner, Horibe, is shot, and Nishi feels responsible for the death of another officer who leaves behind a young wife and child, and he owes money to the yakuza. This is enough to depress anyone. Nishi leaves the police force, paints an old taxi to look like a police car and sets out to organize life for himself and his wife. He does so, and the film ends with Nishi and his wife by the sea. This is where they too end.