Tokyo senso sengo hiwa / The Man Who Left His Will On Film

Tokyo senso sengo hiwa: Eiga de ishi o nokoshite shineda – otoko no monogatari / He Died After the War / [Mies, joka teki testamenttinsa filmille] / [Mannen som upprättade sitt testamente på film]. JP 1970. PC: Sozosha-ATG. EX: Takuji Yamaguchi. D: Nagisa Oshima. SC: Masataka Hara ja Mamoru Sasaki – based on a story by Nagisa Oshima and Tsutomu Tamura. DP: Toichiro Narushima – shot on 16 mm and 35 mm – print 35 mm – b&w. AD: Jusho Toda. M: Toru Takemitsu. ED: Keiichi Uraoka. CAST: Kazuo Goto (Motoki Shoichi, student), Emiko Iwasaki (Yasuko, Shoichi's girlfriend). Members of the POSIPOSI, a film society of young radicals: Sugio Fukyama (Yazawa), Tomoyo Oshima (Akiko), Kenichi Fukuda (Matsumura), Hiroshi Isogai (Sakamoto), Kazuo Hashimoto (Takagi), Kazuya Horikoshi (Endo). 94 min. Print: New Yorker Films (New York), English subtitles. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 13 Sep 2009. - A good definition of light in a print that has signs of wear and tear, but not too much. - Anti-film, metafilm, a film that questions itself and student radicalism. The story of an impasse. - Ironic, witty, philosophical. - The cinematography is remarkable. The sense of landscape and urban living is on the level of Antonioni, but brilliantly original. Many shots can be appreciated as independent photographs. - The man who left his will on film mostly shot cityscapes. He maybe never existed, and at least there is a vicious circle of young men who leave their wills on film, as the story starts again in the end. - Disturbing: the theme of sexual violence. The young men seem to enjoy taking their girls violently, and the girls seem to enjoy it. - I have now seen all Nagisa Oshima's cinema films, and I can confirm that they are all different: each has a different way of storytelling, a different cinematography, and different music and sound solutions. - In Godard's work, the parallel to this would be Weekend.

Nihon shunka-ko

Sing a Song of Sex. JP 1967. PC: Sozosha. P: Takuji Yamaguchi. D: Nagisa Oshima. SC: Tsutomu Tamura, Mamoru Sasaki, Toshio Tajima, Nagisa Oshima. DP: Akira Takada - Shochiku Grandscope 2,35:1 - colour. AD: Jusho Toda. M: Hikaru Hayashi. ED: Keiichi Uraoka. GRADUATE BOYS: Ichiro Araki (Toyoaki Nakamura), Koji Iwabuchi (Hideo Ueda), Kazumi Kushida (Katsumi Hiro), Hiroshi Sato (Koji Maruyama). GRADUATE GIRLS: Nobuko Miyamoto (Sanae Satomi), Hiroko Masuda (Tomoko Ikeda), Hideko Yoshida (Sachido Kaneda, Korean). - Ichimo Itami (Professor Otake), Akiko Koyama (Takako Tanigawa), Kazuko Tajima (Mayuko Fujiwara, 69). 103 min. Print: Japan Foundation, with English subtitles. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 29 Aug 2009. - The colour print looks great to begin with, but the definition of light is uneven. - One of Oshima's most disturbing films. - It is winter in Tokyo. Graduates from the countryside want to enter Tokyo University. Their mentor, Professor Otake, invites them to a pub and they sing together old Japanese bawdy songs. The professor is killed at night in an inn in a gas oven accident. - Akiko Koyama plays the late professor's long-term lady friend. - The story takes place on the resurrection of the Emperor's Day, the celebration of which had been banned during the U.S. occupation. There is a demonstration against it, where workers' songs, the Warsawjanka, "This Land Is Our Land", "We Shall Overcome", etc. are sung along. - The film is almost a musical. - The protagonists interrupt the rebellious singing with bawdy songs, male and female. But the bawdy songs have also a strong dimension of social protest. - Also here there is a Korean theme: the origin of the Japanese is in Korea. - The film is deeply nihilistic and pessimistic. The boy students' sexual fantasies are violent, about raping and humiliation. The young generation does not seem better than the old one. - The girls' fantasies seem to be about being dominated, humiliated and raped, willingly. - Despite the title, there is hardly any sex and only fleeting nudity in this film. - It's more about extreme awkwardness and shyness in sexual matters.

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".

Kaette kita yopporai

Three Resurrected Drunkards / Sinner in Paradise [title on screen] / [Kolmen juopon ylösnousemus] / [Tre uppståndna supare]. JP 1968. PC: Sozosha. P: Takuji Yamaguchi. D: Nagisa Oshima. SC: Tsutomu Tamura, Mamoru Sasaki, Masao Adachi, Nagisa Oshima. DP: Yasuhiro Yoshioka – Eastmancolor – Shochiku Grandscope 2,35:1. AD: Jusho Toda. M: Hikaru Hayashi. ED: Keiichi Uraoka. CAST: Kazuhiko Kato ("O-noppo" The Big One), Osamu Kitayama ("Chunoppo" The Smallest One), Norihiko Hashida ("Chibi" The Smallest One) - Kei Sato (I Chong-Iru, Korean soldier), Cha Dei-Dang (Kim Fhua, Korean college student) - Fumio Watanabe (Dokumushi), Mako Midori (The Beautiful One, Dokumushi's adopted daughter and lover) - Taiji Tonoyama (the old lady of the tobacco shop), Hosei Komatsu (fisherman), Masao Adachi (policeman), Takashi Ueno (policeman), Mutsuhiro Toura. 80 min. A Japan Foundation (Tokyo) print with English subtitles. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 28 Aug 2009. - A brilliant print in perfect 1960s pop colour. - A complete change for Oshima: a pop film with affinities with The Beatles, Frank Tashlin and Jean-Luc Godard. - A parodic romp of three young pop boys on the beach. Their clothes are stolen by illegal Korean immigrants, and the boys themselves are taken for Koreans. - Oshima's only real comedy? - Yet with serious thems such as the situation of the Koreans, the Vietnam War, and the generation gap (the oppression of Mako Midori by Fumio Watanabe). - The music, always interesting in Oshima's 1960s films, is funny. - In the middle of the film there is a great narrative surprise for the audience.

Hakuchu no torima

Violence at Noon / [Keskipäivän demoni] / [Demonen mitt på dagen]. JP 1966. PC: Sozosha. P: Masayuki Nakajima. D: Nagisa Oshima. SC: Tsuton Tamura – based on a short story by Taijun Takeda. DP: Akira Takada - b&w - Shochiku Grandscope 2,35:1. AD: Jusho Toda. M: Hikaru Hayashi. ED: Keiichi Uraoka. CAST: Kei Sato (Eisuke), Saeda Kawaguchi (Shino), Akiko Koyama (Matsuko), Mutsuhiro Toura (Genji Hiuga), Hosei Komatsu (Shino's father), Hideko Kawaguchi (Matsuko's mother), Teruko Kishi (Shino's grandmother), Taiji Tonoyama (schoolmaster), Sen Yano (village counsel), Hideo Kanze (Inagaki), Fumio Watanabe (inspector Haraguchi), Ryoko Takahara (the woman in the hospital), Shigemi Kayashima (teacher). 99 min. A Janus Films print with English subtitles. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 28 Aug 2009. - A clean, intact print of a film with an extremely original definition of light. The definition of light in the print is not perfect but pays justice to the concept. - One of Oshima's seminal films. - Based on a true story of a serial killer, a rapist and a murderer in the 1950s, who became the "High Noon Killer" of the headlines. He is not insane, but devoid of conscience. - The film is a hard look at brutal crime, which has no rational explanation, not even insanity. - The reality of the crime is strange and complex in itself, but Oshima also builds his film as a jigsaw puzzle which starts to make sense first after the screening. - The setting is a mountain village in the Shinshu district in the north of Honshu. A group of young people establish a collective farm, but the experiment is a grave disappointment, which leads to the suicide of Genji, the son of the village chairman, and the suicide attempt of his girlfriend, Shino. Eisuke, who had followed them with the assignment to prevent the suicide attemps, is married to the teacher Matsuko. The double suicide scene triggers in him a strange reaction: he rapes what he thinks is the corpse of Shino. But Shino is revived. Eisuke starts his rapist-homicidal spree with 35 victims. In the end Matsuko and Shino try to repeat the double suicide, but again, Shino survives. - This film demands repeated viewings to be fully appreciated. - Uniquely original cinematography, montage, and a brilliant jazz-like score in counterpoint to the subject.

Muri-shinjo: Nihon no natsu

Japanese Summer: Double Suicide / [Japanilainen kesä: kaksoisitsemurha] / [Japansk sommar: dubbelsjälvmord]. JP 1967. PC: Sozosha. D: Nagisa Oshima. SC: Tsutomu Tamura, Mamoru Sasaki, Nagisa Oshima. DP: Yasuhiro Yoshioka - b&w - scope. AD: Toda Jusho. M: Hikaru Hayashi. ED: Keiichi Uraoka. CAST: Keiko Sakurai (Nejiko), Kei Sato (Otoko), Mutsushiro Toura (Television), Shunsuke Mizoguchi (Tsukibito, Television's assistant), Taji Tonoyama (Hanging Tree), Masakazu Tamura (Boy). 98 min. Print: Janus Films, with English subtitles. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 17 Aug 2009. - Brilliant definition of light. - Cinema of the absurd in an universe of sex and violence. The leading lady Nejiko wants to find a man to make love to her. The leading man Otoko wants to find someone to kill him. - The yakuza prison milieu does not make sense. - There is a sniper who is being hunted by the police. - In the final shoot-out the desperadoes escaping from the yakuza prison meet the sniper and the police. - This picture is a mad show of the death instinct.