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Case of "the High-Noon Attacker," not an uncommon aberration per the police report, "no signs of mental disorder." The maniac (Kei Sato) and his women, the young maid (Saeda Kawaguchi) and the schoolteacher wife (Akiko Koyama). Reunion during the midday break-in, the mistress of the house is murdered and the servant turns unsteady witness, days at the failing rural collective are recalled. The promising assemblyman (Rokko Toura) follows his victorious election by dangling from a tree with a self-made noose, his ghost turns out to be the least haunting element in the situation. "Love seeks no rewards" is the motto of the blinkered instructor, raped by the former pupil she'll marry. "You taught me democracy!" The flip side of Nagisa Oshima's long takes, startlingly prismatic editing patterns to give the national psyche as shared tangles of memory, desire and complicity. (Eisenstein's October and Resnais' Muriel are forerunners.) The making of the beast, the violated body revived at the river's edge, not far from the Rashomon forest. Blanched vistas chopped by rapid shifts in angle, nocturnal cityscapes abstracted in a succession of blurring pans. The theoretical (words on blackboards and scribbled diagrams) and the visceral (beads of sweat trembling in close-up) in continuous play, the Oshima approach. Inescapable connections amid relentless fragmentation, the bond between victims above all, "it's too late for us to be sensible." Fake versus real poison, guilty inquiries on board the hurtling train. The survivor at the close carries no new consciousness, only the idealistic corpse over her shoulder. "This reflection will be our first and last." Imamura takes a different tack with the material in Vengeance Is Mine. Cinematography by Akira Takada. With Fumio Watanabe, Taiji Tonoyama and Hideo Kanze. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |