Spotlight on Nagisa Oshima
If one had to describe the cinematic style of Nagisa Oshima,
the words “radical”, “provocative”, “bold”, “pushing the envelope”, “political”
would often be used. These words are apt description for two of his most
well-known films, In the Realm of the Senses (1976) and Night
and Fog in Japan (1960). However, after seeing the films as part of
this spotlight, I can add the words “experimental” and “avant-garde” to
describe his films.
There are 17 films as part of this spotlight, with 14 of the
films being first-time views. A little over two decades ago, the first Oshima
film I saw was his last film Taboo (1999). Then I jumped to his
most well-known film, In the Realm of the Senses and then moved
onto Night and Fog in Japan. That is not an ideal order and one
that left me ill prepared to appreciate his cinema. This spotlight allowed me
to view his films in order and that allowed a better understanding of his style
and his tackling of political topics.
The 17 Nagisa Oshima films part of this spotlight:
Tale of
Love and Hope (1959)
Cruel
Story of Youth (1960)
Night
and Fog in Japan (1960)
The
Pleasures of the Flesh (1965)
Violence
at Noon (1966)
Sing a
Song of Sex (1967)
Double
Suicide: Japanese Summer (1967)
Death
by Hanging (1968)
Three
Resurrected Drunkards (1968)
Diary
of a Shinjuku Thief (1969)
Boy
(1969)
The Man
Who Left His Will on Film (1970)
The
Ceremony (1971)
In the
Realm of the Senses (1976)
Empire
of Passion (1978)
Merry
Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983)
Taboo
(1999)
Majority of Oshima’s films depict crime of one sort or
another. Murder and rape are the more common depictions in his films but he has
also tackled war crimes, frauds/scams, robberies, embezzlement, blackmail and
crimes of passion. The criminal acts in his films aren’t shown in isolation as
his films examine the social and economic scenarios that lead the characters to
go down the path of crime. Characters who commit murder are shown to undergo
guilt and a moral crisis before they ultimately meet their fate. In majority of
his films, punishment is duly handed out to the characters and a criminal is
caught or apprehended by police even if they are caught off camera and audience
is informed via a radio commentary (such as in Violence at Noon).
1.1 Fraud & Scams
Multiple Oshima films tackle the concept of fraud or
breaking the law to make ends meet. We see a simple example of this in his
first film, Tale of Love and Hope, where a boy sells his pet
pigeons repeatedly. This is because once he sells his pigeons, they fly back to
his home, and he then proceeds to sell them again. No one is forcing the boy to
sell the pigeons but he does this to ensure their family has much-needed money.
The film shows the harshness of life for those on the street with barely enough
money to feed themselves.
Fraud or scams plays a pivotal part in Boy, a
film where a family claims fake injuries by jumping in front of a vehicle to
extract money from a shook-up driver. In the film, the father starts the scam by
getting his wife to jump in front of cars. When she is unable to continue with
this, he gets his older son to take her place. The film was inspired by a true
story in Japan.
1.2 Murder and Assault
Murder and sexual assault are two of the more common
criminal acts found in many Oshima films. In films such as The Pleasures
of the Flesh, Double Suicide, Violence at Noon, the male characters
don’t start out as cold-blooded criminals as they are initially shown before
they commit their first murder. After the initial shock and guilt of that first
murder wears off, we see the same person commit the 2nd murder with
ease. Violence at Noon (based on a true story) depicts a serial
killer but before he killed frequently, he robbed houses and assaulted women.
Rape is frequently shown in his films such as in Cruel Story of Youth,
Violence at Noon, Sing a Song of Sex, Diary of a Shinjuku
Thief, The Man Who Left His Will on Film, Empire of
Passion. Death by Hanging doesn’t show the crime but the
man sentenced to death is guilty of that crime.
Crime of passion also plays a part in Oshima’s films with
the most famous such crime depicted In the Realm of the Senses
where the woman cuts off the member of her lover (again based on a true story).
Murder, blackmail and embezzlement are featured in The
Pleasures of the Flesh which is also about the moral collapse of a
human being. In the film, Atsushi is blackmailed by a man who comes to his
house and asks Atsushi to keep a suitcase full of his money safe until the man
serves his prison sentence. The money is gotten through embezzlement and the
man calculated that if he served his prison sentence and the police didn’t find
the money, he could live a life of luxury after he got out. This plot sounds
like something out of Hugo Fregnese’s Apenas un Delincuente (Hardly
a Criminal), which later inspired The Delinquents (2023).
However, Oshima’s film is a completely different beast and goes into a
different direction altogether.
1.3 Justice and Punishment
Atoning for one’s crimes and seeking punishment are
highlighted in multiple films but Death by Hanging stands out in
debating the ethics of justice and how to punish a criminal. In the film, a man
is sentenced to be killed by hanging but somehow he doesn’t die after being
hung. The police, jail officials and priest do not know how to handle this
scenario, especially after the man loses his memory. The film descends into
satire and surrealism as everyone around the man try to act out his crime in
the hope that his memory comes back and they can hang him again.
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence is a rare Oshima
film in this spotlight that highlights war but it is not a conventional war
film. Instead, it raises topics of war crimes and how prisoners of war should
be treated or punished. The film also raises cultural differences between Japan
and the West in how captured soldiers are perceived. There are some sentiments
in the film that echo what Martin Scorsese tried to highlight decades later
with Silence (2016, based on a Japanese novel by Shūsaku Endō).
2.0 Political ideas
Nagisa Oshima packed his films with dizzying political
ideas, in a manner that recalls Miklós Jancsó especially since both directors’ spliced political ideas with songs such as Oshima did with Sing a Song of Sex.
Jancsó and Oshima tackled politics almost at the same time in the 1960s but
their topics highlighted the changes their nations were going through. In Jancsó’s
case, the topic was capitalism vs socialism illustrating the differing ways of
life in the West vs Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Oshima depicted leftist ideology
as a failed movement against the backdrop of the US-Japanese Security Treaty of
1960.
Night and Fog in Japan is the most political Oshima
film where a wedding sequence results in past discussions about failed
political movements and examination of guilt. The sentiments of failed
ideologies and what people could do better spills over into his other films as
well such as Double Suicide: Japanese Summer which shows how a
grassroots revolution can ignite and then be extinguished.
Oshima didn’t only tackle internal Japanese political sides
(left vs right) but he also tackled external politics. He wasn’t shy to depict
Japanese sentiments towards Koreans as highlighted in Death by Hanging
and Three Resurrected Drunkards. In Death by Hanging,
he takes a Korean side of things by turning an individual crime into a
cause-effect about national guilt. In Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence,
Oshima depicts a humanist side to the British in how they deal with prisoners
of war and their willingness to show compassion. This is completely opposite to
how Hollywood and many other film industries of the world show the opposing
side. There is no rallying cry to show a superior Japanese in Merry
Christmas, Mr. Lawrence and instead the Japanese look like the more
brutal side. This ignoring of marching towards the war is also shown in just a
single scene In The Realm of the Senses, which focuses on the sexual
relationship indoors but the film shows the male in the film is shutting out
the world and making love because he doesn’t want to go to war. It is his choice
to ignore the drums of war and in a similar manner, it is Oshima’s choice in
how he depicts politics in his films.
3.0 Pushing the Envelope
Jonathan Rosenbaum mentioned that “..no two Oshima films
are alike.”
OSHIMA’S CINEMA CONSISTS of particular
interventions in Japan’s internal political debates, and freely draws on forms
as well as styles that seem to come from everywhere, including Japan. Some
would call this disconcertingly voracious trait “very Japanese,” and it helps
to account for the truism that no two Oshima films are alike. Jonathan
Rosenbaum, ArtForum
Rosenbaum’s words are certainly true in that even though
many Oshima films share common elements, traits, plots, they are still different
in how they portray the characters or take a path towards a different outcome.
One consistent thread in his films is his ability to push the envelope and
shatter boundaries. These boundaries could either be cultural, political, social,
societal, economic or religious. For example, The Ceremony
savagely shatters the norms of a Japanese family as one has seen in other
Japanese films. The Ceremony can be called an anti-Ozu film. If
one’s notion of Japanese society has come from Ozu or Kurosawa films, then The
Ceremony shatters that.
Oshima wasn’t satisfied with challenging the aspect of a
society but even took aim at the form of cinema itself. His films can’t be
classified to fit neatly in any single genre. On first glance, Empire of
Passion feels like a successor to In the Realm of the Senses
but Empire of Passion turns into a ghost story; Merry
Christmas, Mr. Lawrence is not a war film but is in fact anti-war or
even a love story; The Ceremony is about weddings and funerals
but it isn’t a typical family relationship film. The Man Who Left his
Will on Camera completely deconstructs the form of cinema. It is an
experimental, avant-garde film that is unclassifiable and its style echoes Godard
and Oshima’s contemporary Yoshishige Yoshida (Eros + Massacre, 1969).
Sex and nudity are sprinkled in Oshima’s films but they
reach peak form In the Realm of the Senses, a film whose honest
naked depiction of lovemaking has few parallels in Cinema, even to this day.
Almost all his films show a male-female relationship, but he broke this
boundary with his last film Taboo, which shows strong samurai infatuated
with a young male warrior. However, this isn’t the first Oshima film to
showcase homoeroticism. Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence has a hint
of homoeroticism throughout but it only comes to the surface via a tiny kiss.
That subtle layer is shattered and explored more in Taboo.
Top 10 films of Nagisa Oshima:
Ranking Oshima’s films isn’t an easy task. None of his films
are comfortable viewing. All the films forced me to grapple with multiple
topics (ethics, political ideas) or with the character’s personalities. There
are no traditional heroes or easily identifiable good characters. I couldn’t
even finish any of these films in one sitting. However, watching the films in order
allowed a proper appreciation of his cinematic style and topics. It is clear he
is a radical filmmaker, both in terms of form and content.
1. The Boy (1969)
Blends social depiction with realism. The rare Oshima film
with an emotional beating heart.
2. In the Realm of the Senses (1976)
Oshima’s most well-known film is still in a category of its
own. There really is nothing like this out there!
3. The Pleasures of the Flesh (1965)
Murder, Blackmail, embezzlement, debauchery, sex, gangsters,
violence. This film encapsulates the essence of Oshima’s cinematic style,
topics.
4. Cruel Story of Youth (1960)
A rebellious character depicted in a bright palette channels
the energy of James Dean and 1950s American cinema.
5. Death by Hanging (1968)
Starts off in documentary style before descending into a
surrealistic satire.
6. The Man Who Left his Will on Camera (1970)
Experimental film which deconstructs what cinema means.
7. The Ceremony (1971)
Savage depiction of a Japanese family.
8. Night and Fog in Japan (1960)
Wears its political heart on its sleeve.
9. Violence at Noon (1966)
A serial killer film that defies form as its progresses.
10. Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983)
The most emotional ending of any Oshima film.
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