Koshikei

Death by Hanging / [Hirttotuomio] / [Dömd att hängas]. JP 1968. PC: Sozosha, Art Theatre Guild. P: Nagisa Oshima, Masayuki Nakajima, Takuji Yamaguchi. D: Nagisa Oshima. SC: Tsutomu Tamura, Mamoru Sasaiki, Michinori Fukao, Nagisa Oshima. DP: Yasuhiro Yoshioka - b&w - VistaVision. AD: Jusho Toda. M: Hikaru Hayashi. ED: Sueko Shiraishi. CAST: Do-yun Yu / Yun Do Yun (R, the convict on death row, to be hanged), Hosei Komatsu (district attorney), Kei Sato (prison warden), Fumio Watanabe (education officer), Toshiro Ishido (catholic priest), Masao Adachi (chief of guards), Mutsuhiro Toura (doctor), Masao Matsuda (secretary of the D.A.), Akiko Koyama (Korean woman), Shizui Sato (prison guard), Takashi Ueni (prison guard). Commentary read by: Nagisa Oshima. 118 min. Print: New Yorker Films, with English subtitles. Viewed at Cinema Orion, 29 Aug 2009. - A duped print with an uneven quality of definition, from soft to better, but never worthy of the film's VistaVision origins. The subtitles are sharp. - One of three of Oshima's greatest masterpieces, together with Gishiki and Etsuraku. - The brilliant black comedy starts as a thesis film in the tradition of André Cayatte and Fritz Lang, with text and commentary only, but then there is a sharp turn to an original and macabre development. - The execution fails, the convict called R survives, but his personality has changed, and he has lost his memory. He does not even recognize concepts like "family" and "desire". - The desperate officials start to perform an elaborate series of reconstructions to teach R from scratch who he is... what his crime is... and what life is... The boundary between reality and hallucination is blurred, as a simulated woman materializes at least to many of those present. The woman is the most eloquent of them all. - The woman is Korean, and the theme of racism surfaces. In the drunken revel of the officials, their own sexual and violent obsessions surface. - The film is a witty philosophical reflection. What I did? What I am? - R accepts being R for the sake of all the R's. - In the final double execution there is a void at the end of the rope.

Natsu no imoto

Dear Summer Sister / [Kesäsisko] / [Sommarsystern]. JP 1972. PC: Sozosha-ATG. P: Takashi Ueno. D: Nagisa Oshima. SC: Tsutomu Tamura, Mamoru Sasaki, Nagisa Oshima. DP: Yasuhiro Yoshioka - Eastmancolor - 1,37:1. AD: Jusho Toda. M: Toru Takemitsu. ED: Keiichi Uraoka. CAST: Hosei Komatsu (Kosuke Kiguchi, the judge), Hiromi Kurita (Sunaoko, Kosuke's daughter), Lily (Momoko Kotoda, Sunaoko's private teacher), Akiko Koyama (Tsuru Omura), Shoji Ishibashi (Tsuruo Omura, Tsuru's son), Kei Sato (Shinko Kuniyoshi, a policeman), Taiji Tonoyama (Takuzo Sakurada), Mutsuhito Toura (Rintoku Teruya, singer of Okinawa folk songs). 96 min. Print: New Yorker Films, with English subtitles by Noël Burch. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 29 Aug 2009. - The image of the print has a duped look, the colour definition is off, the print has low contrast, but the subtitles are sharp. - Nagisa Oshima's last Japanese cinema film: from then on, his films were international co-productions or tv films. - One of Oshima's strangest and curious films is about the secrets of Japan. The generation that has experienced the war as grown-ups seems to have a general mutual understanding of many things that remain incomprehensible to the younger generations and, of course, for the non-Japanese. - The sense of being puzzled in a company where the others seem to know. - Okinawa is returned to Japan after the end of the U.S. occupation. - Sunaoko, the 14-year-old girl, is in search of a boy that may be her brother. - The key sequence is towards the end of the picture. - Sunaoko and Tsuruo the apparent brother swim in the ocean, in the red sunset. - Tsuru the mother is with Shinko Kuniyoshi the policeman. Rintoku "the killer" is with with the bald drunkard in white suit Takuzo Sakurada, "the victim". Kosuke Kikuchi the judge is with Momoko "the private teacher", his new bride-to-be. Sunaoko and Tsuruo are "the savior" and "the saved one". - No one will know who is the father of Sunaoko and Tsuruo, the candidates being Kosuke or Shinko. - And if Sunaoko is now pregnant, the father can be Tsuruo her possible brother or another guy. - Further strange revelations: the strong sex drive of the Okinawan women. Okinawa as a center of prostitution during the American occupation. - Shinko Kuniyoshi had been to prison as a student rebel. He raped Tsuru Omura when his best friend Kosuke Kiguchi was in prison. Both left only pregnant women behind them. Both confess everything smilingly, and Tsuru Omura smiles, too. - "Your daughter likes mixtures, too". - It would be interesting to hear the interpretation of this film from Donald Richie, for whom this is "essential Oshima".