Obscure Japanese Film #253Taiji Tonoyama An unnamed 51-year-old man (Taiji Tonoyama) suffering from some kind of nervous breakdown is recuperating in a mental hospital when he learns about the death of an old friend. Feeling depressed, he wants to prove to himself that he’s still alive, so he tries to have sex with the young female patient he’s sharing a room with (Kayo Matsuo). She’s not too pleased about this when she wakes up to find him on top of her, so she fights him off and runs for the doctor (Naoyuki Kanno aka Tadahiko Sugano). When the doctor arrives, he tells the man he has to leave immediately. The man’s wife (Nobuko Otowa) comes to take him home and, although dismayed by what her husband has done, she remains surprisingly sympathetic. Kayo Matsuo The couple have a son (Hideki Hayashi) and daughter (Miyoko Akaza) in their late teens who pay little attention to their usually meek father. However, when the son learns from the doctor what his father has done, he decides to track down the female patient and attempt to seduce her himself… Miyoko Akaza and Hideki Hayashi Writer-director Kaneto Shindo throws any pretence at realism out of the window here – of course, no mental hospital would have a male and female patient sharing the same private room, and there are numerous other issues one could take with the story, but he seems entirely unconcerned with such matters here. One matter he does seem concerned with is the generational differences he perceives regarding male-female relationships. Throughout the film, Shindo contrasts the relationship between the father and his wife with that of the developing one between the son and the young woman, and seems to be suggesting that the son believes himself to have the upper hand, but doesn’t – although he may have the strength to make a woman submit physically, that’s all he has, and it’s she who retains power over him. However, this is not really what stays with you at the end of the film. Tonoyama and Nobuko Otowa Regular Shindo collaborators composer Hikaru Hayashi and cinematographer Kiyomi Kuroda help to make both the sound and visuals of this typically eccentric work consistently interesting throughout. At times, the film plays like a comedy, and certainly parts of it are quite funny, the comic highlight being when Tonoyama has to give a guided tour to the world’s most taciturn man (Hideo Kanze). Ultimately, though, this is not a film likely to leave anyone smiling, and perhaps the laughter is supposed to catch in our throats as we see the apparently ridiculous protagonist struggling to come to grips with ageing, failure and mortality, while his wife’s devotion remains unshakeable. So, while it appears that Shindo set out to make a film with a sexual theme, it becomes more concerned with the father’s mid-life crisis (which, admittedly, is partly due to his impotence, yet not in merely sexual terms). However, it’s also possible that this was what Shindo intended all along, and the sex angle was simply a means of selling the film to the public – the poster promised Awakened sexuality! Lost sexuality! A groundbreaking and controversial film from the genius director Shindo, known for Instinct! A film exploring humanity through the theme of ‘sex’. (Instinct refers to Shindo’s previous film, which was also known as Honno or Lost Sex, so it seems that that film must have been successful at the box office in Japan anyway.) Taiji Tonoyama, who was indeed 51 at the time but looked older, had co-founded the production company (Kindai Eiga Kyokai) which made this film together with Shindo and Kozaburo Yoshimura in 1950. Tonoyama appeared in most of Shindo’s films, but – being a short, bald man with sad, bulging eyes – he rarely had such a substantial one as this and its great to see him featured more prominently for a change. He has a staggering 346 credits on IMDb and is probably best-remembered for another rare lead he played in Shindo’s Naked Island (1960). He died in 1989, but Shindo liked him so much that he subsequently wrote a book about him, which he followed with a feature film Sanmon yakusha (2000). The title means ‘third-rate actor’ which is how Tonoyama had referred to himself in the title of his own 1966 book, which translates as The Irresponsible Ramblings of a Third-Rate Actor. Bonus trivia: The title sequence featuring lava lamp bubbles was designed by the famous artist Taro Okamoto, who also did the titles for Shindo’s Mother (1963), Onibaba (1964) and Yoshida’s Escape from Japan (1964). Thanks to A.K. If you enjoy this blog, feel free to Buy Me a Coffee!
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