The Idiot - Akira Kurosawa, 1951.
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The Idiot - Akira Kurosawa, 1951.
Excerpt from Pale Flower (1964)
Poster by Tadanori Yokoo for Shinjuku Dorobō Nikki (1968).
Tadanori Yokoo on the set of Shinjuku Dorobō Nikki (1968).
Martial Law (Kaigenrei, 1973)
The 10th year of Shōwa (1936) is a year of violent unrest. The country is torn between modernization and conservative forces. The power of the military is on the rise and a group of its members is planning an uprising that is directed at eliminating moderate politicians and officials of rival factions and establishing military control. These are turbulent times for Japan. While the left wing intellectuals are considered a national threat and thus constantly hunted down and persecuted, the right wing ones are tolerated and allowed to divulge ideas that become the conceptual backbone for the delusions of the ultra-nationalists. One of these intellectuals is Ikki Kita, an extreme right-wing socialist best known for his reformist books in which he advocates a coup d'etat for the institution of martial law, a necessary step toward the ultimate creation of a totalitarian regime in which the Emperor is the pivotal figure.
Kaigenrei is the 16th feature of Japanese film-maker Yoshishige Yoshida and it represents a continuation and at the same time a sort of departure from his usual themes. The film, the third in the director’s Radicalism Trilogy, is known to the Western audience both by the title of Martial Law (its literal translation) and Coup d'Etat. At the time of its release it was generally well-received by critics and was chosen as Japan's entry to the 46th Academy Awards in the foreign film category, even though it wasn't accepted by the Academy.
Yoshida's film is based on the events related to the infamous February 26 incident that was staged in 1936, with particular emphasis on the involvement of Ikki Kita and his ideology. Kita's influence at the time of the incident was considered crucial, despite his connection with the rebellion and its perpetrators was in fact largely indirect. He was tried and sentenced to death on the 14th of August of the year following the attempted coup.
In the course of the Shōwa era, Japan was shaken a number of times by attempted military takeovers aimed at disrupting the liberal order established during the brief Taishō period and at restoring an authoritarian system. Even if the February 26 military uprising was not successful, this and other similar incidents had a deep impact on pre-war Japanese politics. Another well-known case is the May 15 incident that took place in 1932, which led to the assassination of Prime Minister Tsuyoshi Inukai, with the subsequent gradual weakening of party politics and democracy in Japan, creating the ideal conditions for militarists to pilot the country toward the disasters of World War II.
Even if the events in Kaigenrei may have been perceived as belonging to a remote past by most Japanese, especially by those born after the end of the war, the core of the film concerned political and philosophical questions that were far from being resolved when the film was made. Resurgence of the nationalistic spirit is a recurring motif in Japan, as the incident involving writer Yukio Mishima proved in 1970. Mishima felt a deep connection with the group that staged the February 26 coup. His short story Patriotism, on which a short film bearing the same title was also based, owed its inspiration to the 1936 attempted takeover and to the extremist doctrines of Ikki Kita.
Kaigenrei is a complex and beautifully crafted film. It was produced with the help of ATG and its artistic value is not diminished by its relatively modest budget. The way the plot progresses is not action-driven: the clamor of the rebellion is never shown on screen, but always alluded to, implied or reported with indirect narrative devices, and bloodshed is exhibited as an aesthetic experience rather than as an illustrative element, shifting the attention from the historical events to the purely mental. Nevertheless, there is an obscure undercurrent of tension and violence that permeates the whole work. The cinematography by Motokichi Hasegawa, a collaborator to Yoshida's previous Eros + Massacre, is an essential element for grasping the hidden meaning of the images. Its pervasive expressionism is particularly evocative and its foremost thought-provoking quality is not revelation but concealment. Natural light sources — screen panels, windows — contribute greatly to the subtext in the circumstances that constitute the film's story line. Deep shadows envelop the characters, while a blinding light crowns them, without however being able to penetrate the moral twilight nesting in their souls. Back-lit figures of authorities and bureaucrats are enthroned like petrified oracles with their features partially blotted out by ominous penumbra; slivers of light graze face and arms of Kita in his moments of frenzy. The unusual framing from above and below casts the viewers in a position where they feel their ability of judgment thrown off balance. A full view of the characters is constantly blocked out by obstructions — objects, architectural fragments, other characters in the foreground — reducing substantially their gestural freedom, a freedom that in any case is greatly attenuated by restrained acting. Mikuni's performance as Kita is especially riveting. His figure emerging from expanses of black and white, gaze lost in a void, is exemplary of the visionary's detachment and unavoidable solitude. The use of negative space is likewise an important element in the visualization of the inherent dynamics of Yoshida's film. A sense of inescapable doom and overpowering entrapment pervades Martial Law's every sequence. Besides being aesthetically captivating, the visual style, together with the score by Sei Ichiyanagi, creates an ambivalent portrait of one of the darkest ages in Japanese history.
The film's ambivalence denotes the intention of Yoshida not to pose as the judge. The celebration or condemnation of rightist extremism is irrelevant to the final message delivered to the spectator. Kita is betrayed by the same powers he idealized and put at the center of his philosophical system, but his portrayal is not a romantic one either. Mikuni's character is a man with idiosyncratic issues; he is a recognized intellectual leader and yet he is incapable of human interaction with the members of his family; his chilling moral inflexibility and his views are largely motivated by hardened private scars. Kaigenrei's depiction of early Shōwa and its actors is sinister and openly ambiguous and not easy to follow for those not familiar with pre-war Japanese history. The film's focus is not on the historical events and their consequences, which are barely mentioned, but on their most profound implications. Kaigenrei unfolds on the existential stage and its time and space are largely of abstract nature. Yoshida's interest lies in exploring the problematic relationship between truth and illusion, power and individual, and between ideals and their historical and political actualization.
Title: Martial Law/Coup d'Etat
Original Title: 戒厳令
Directed by: Yoshishige Yoshida
With: Rentarô Mikuni, Yasuyo Matsumura, Yasuo Miyake
Year: 1973
Kaigenrei - Yoshishige Yoshida, 1973
Kaigenrei - Yoshishige Yoshida, 1973
Boy (少年) - Nagisa Oshima, 1969
Boy (少年) - Nagisa Oshima, 1969
Boy (Shōnen, 1969)
Boy is the story of a family of four surviving at the margins of society, unnoticed, almost forgotten. Travelling all across Japan and performing their con act, which consists in jumping in front of cars and frightening motorists into thinking they have hit and injured a member of the family (usually the eldest son or the mother) to extort money from them, parents and children manage to live an uncertain day-by-day existence, without any hope and responsibility concerning the future. The family carries on until authority eventually crushes down their precarious circumstances.
Based on events that shocked Japan in 1966, Boy was received with mixed criticism at the time of its release. The fact the film is inspired by a true story however takes nothing away from its highly suggestive nature. The "Father", the "Stepmother" and the "Boy" are archetypal figures in a timeless tragedy of human incomprehension and negation. At the same time, their down-to-earth essence is constantly reassessed by showing them as they carry out trivial activities, like satisfying their bodily needs and conversing about everyday matters. Just a few random facts are revealed to us now and then about the family members: the Father is diabetic and was injured during the war; the Boy has a grandmother in Kochi, where he also attended school for some time; the Stepmother is from Fukui. These and other sparse clues never come as a revelation, they do not make a real difference in our perception of the characters' motives and desires, and we listen to casual conversations as intruders, not as spectators in a privileged omniscient position. We hardly get to know what the adults feel and think, and even if we observe them directly, they remain impenetrable; the glimpses we have of their real selves are always filtered through layers of greed and frustration.
Boy is also a film of little details, where the mundane shapes a narrative of broken expectations and misplaced deeds. The Stepmother's eyeglasses flying on the floor; the red rubber boots of a certain girl, the various hats worn by the Boy: these are just a few examples of inanimate objects that become an extension to the characters' identity and symbols in their tragedy. It's not uncommon for the Japanese to create a parallel storyline through the minutest items and ordinary actions and Ôshima uses them thoroughly in his depiction of the humdrum albeit lawless existence of this group of outcasts in the Japan of the mid 60's. Objects define what words fail to convey. The names of the characters are not revealed until the end, when a neutral newscaster's voice acknowledges their identity as "Omura Takeo, born in 1922", "Taniguchi Takeko, born in 1939" and "Toshio, 10 years old", while summing up their lives and the scandal of the car accidents through a collection of stills revisiting some of the events of the story, effectively confining the family members to the anonymous carousel of faceless somebodies emerging and disappearing in the impersonal crowd of the news.
Interestingly enough, the only parenthesis of almost comforting normality in the story takes place off screen. We are not shown the time when the family goes into hiding for fear of being found out and settle in Osaka; we do not know how they deal with a regular lifestyle and what kind of dynamics this entails. As members of the public opinion, it is only through the characters' dysfunctional side that we are given to acknowledge their existence.
Besides its bleak humanistic outlook, the film offers an accurate sociological commentary on the Japanese society of the 60's. The family devising the car scam is emblem of a country that is struggling to be on par with the economic powers of the world. Cars are the tangible attribute for Japan's regained prosperity; at the same time they are more than a status symbol, they are vehicles for the popular classes to stay afloat, through licit and illicit means. Similar topics, often veined with social and political criticism, were not uncommon in the works of the new filmmakers of Japan. An example is Noriaki Tsuchimoto's documentary On the Road.
From a visual point of view, the cinematography of Boy is a stunning achievement in its own right. Color and tinted black and white are alternated throughout the film, creating a sub-textual score that is revealing of the Boy's subjective ambivalence. The way color is used is never a simple reinforcement to illustration of facts and feelings nor does it give away in obvious manner indications concerning how the viewer should react emotionally. Some scenes are revisited in different color registers, offering the spectator new material for thought.
Besides being the central character, the Boy is the only key we have to connect on an emotional level with the events shown. He leans towards his Stepmother's side. Even if she can be abusive and cruel, she has a certain degree of comradeship and understanding for the Boy. This is why she gives him money and buys trinkets for him. Boy and Stepmother plan to keep the business going on their own in order to save enough to lead a normal life afterwards. Even if for different reasons, their goals and ambitions overlap. As an adult however, the woman's natural sense of righteousness is lost. Ultimately, as a woman, the Stepmother is far from being in control and is rather a lesser victim in the mechanics of a male-centric world.
Adults and children are two poles at the ends of the human spectrum. While adults remain isolated and extraneous, occasionally getting together only on a superficial, businesslike level, children associate following their instincts. The Boy is protective of his little brother, whose innocence he tries to preserve together with his own through the tale of the Men of the Cosmos, a superior race from the galaxy of Andromeda, whose aim is fighting evil and caring for one another. He also establishes a deep bond with the girl with the red boots, without even exchanging a single word with her. The death of the girl is the Boy's final epiphany, the turning point that makes him grow out of his fantasies to realize he is just a helpless being with no hope left in humanity. Adults and children live in contingent and yet separate spheres, forced to share the same physical spaces and yet potentially tending towards opposites. Adults force children into the same roles they impose on themselves, and children are not given the right to pursue their natural inclinations. To overcome the dismay of constantly living a life of annihilation within the constraints of the adult world, children can only retreat into a universe of make-believe.
Title: Boy
Original Title: 少年
Directed by: Nagisa Ôshima
With: Fumio Watanabe, Akiko Koyama, Tetsuo Abe
Year: 1969
Abe Kōbō
Actor Leslie Cheung in Farewell My Concubine (Chen Kaige, 1993)
Director Kenji Mizoguchi, screenwriter Yoshikata Yoda, and actress/director Kinuyo Tanaka visiting France and Italy in 1953.
Nagisa Oshima 1932-2013
Actress Yoshiko Kuga photographed by Shōtarō Akiyama.
Ayako Wakao and Kyōko Kishida in Manji (Yasuzō Masumura, 1964)
Setsuko Hara.