Nagisa Oshima is a master of Japanese New Wave filmmaking.
Nagisa Oshima was a trailblazing Japanese director active between the 1950s and ’90s. A key figure in the Japanese New Wave and an inveterate rule breaker, he was not afraid to smash any taboo. His films are always provocative and often erotic, his 1976 masterpiece In the Realm of the Senses most of all. Beneath the daring subject matter and hard-hitting visuals, however, Oshima’s movies offer a pointed, sophisticated critique of postwar Japan.
Consequently, exploring the director’s work is like revisiting the culture at a unique and pivotal moment in its history, where so much was changing. Indeed, Oshima was one of Japan’s great chroniclers of generational divides, culture clash, and conflicts between tradition and modernity. Not all of his films are amazing, but the best of them remain potent and edgy, almost as intense now as they were five decades ago. These are Oshima’s ten finest projects, ranked.
10 ‘Max My Love’ (1986)
Starring: Charlotte Rampling, Anthony Higgins, Victoria Abril, Anne-Marie Besse
Perhaps Oshima’s strangest film, Max My Love centers on Margaret Jones (Charlotte Rampling), the wife of a British diplomat (Anthony Higgins) stationed in France. She secretly rents a London apartment where she lives with her pet chimpanzee turned lover, Max. This premise comes courtesy of co-writer Jean-Claude Carrière, who had frequently collaborated with Luis Buñuel on that director’s most surreal projects, too.
Oshima plays this unusual affair off as a comedy, with most of the main characters reacting to the revelation without much shock. Only the supporting players, like the Joneses’s dinner guests, become uncomfortable watching Margaret canoodling with a great ape. There are some interesting ideas here, particularly evident in the occasional similarities between the chimp and the diplomat. The movie also pokes at themes around wildness and domesticity but doesn’t seem entirely sure what point it’s trying to make. The end product bears traces of Oshima’s boldness but without his usual focus and intensity.
9 ‘Sing a Song of Sex’ (1967)
Starring: Ichirô Araki, Kazuko Tajima, Jûzô Itami, Akiko Koyama
Sing a Song of Sex (subtitled A Treatise on Japanese Bawdy Songs) revolves around four high school students preparing for their university entrance exams. After meeting up with a drunken teacher, the characters embark on a journey of sexual exploration. Through a series of vignettes, mostly improvised, Oshima examines the rising generation, who appear sexually hungry but politically disconnected and adrift.
The story gets dark; it’s striking how nihilistic these young men are. They witness violence and casual cruelty but seem unmoved by it. In the process, they become stand-ins for an entire cohort of postwar Japanese citizens raised during a time of rapid social and technological transformation. Traditions were in question and old certainties had become unstable. Consequently, Sing a Song of Sex is more political than erotic. While the plot may be harsh, the visuals are bright and colorful, with rich reds and blacks in particular. It makes for one of Oshima’s most visually pleasing (if thematically unsettling) projects.
8 ‘Cruel Story of Youth’ (1960)
Starring: Yūsuke Kawazu, Miyuki Kuwano, Yoshiko Kuga, Fumio Watanabe
Cruel Story of Youth is a similar snapshot of disillusioned postwar Japanese youth and a significant work of the Japanese New Wave. The story follows Makoto (Miyuki Kuwano) and Kiyoshi (Yūsuke Kawazu), a young couple frustrated by the constraints of their conservative society. In rebellion, they resort to petty theft and sex work to fund their extravagant lifestyle. Inevitably, their relationship spirals into violence and betrayal.
Technically, the film has much in common with the New Wave films then emerging from France. For example, cinematographer Takashi Kawamata employs hand-held cameras and on-location shooting. These techniques emphasize the themes of bitterness and aimlessness. Oshima criticizes these protagonists harshly, but he reserves his sharpest critique for the generation that came before them. Cruel Story of Youth seems to blame the architects of postwar Japan for not doing enough to help the generations that would follow. These ideas resonated; the film was a solid commercial success, significantly boosting Oshima’s profile.
7 ‘The Ceremony’ (1971)
Starring: Nobuko Otowa, Kenzō Kawarasaki, Kei Satō, Atsuko Kaku
This drama focuses on the dysfunctional Sakurada family as they gather for a series of marriage and funeral rituals. Beneath the facade of propriety lies a web of secrets, resentments, and hidden desires. They appear outwardly wealthy but really are struggling; they preach purity but commit private crimes. Most of all, the elders cling to their traditions, even as they cause harm to the younger family members.
The Sakurada clan is meant to be Japan in microcosm, at least from Oshima’s perspective. Specifically, the director uses these characters to comment on certain attitudes within the society at the time. The older generation is stuck in the past while the younger one is too passive to challenge them. One character represents far-right nationalism, others are casually xenophobic, and several follow the rules to absurd extremes. For example, they force a groom to go through with his wedding, even though the bride is absent. The film’s structure is nonlinear, jumping back and forth in time, complemented by wide-angle shots and extensive long takes.
6 ‘Death by Hanging’ (1968)
Starring: Do-yun Yu, Kei Satō, Fumio Watanabe, Rokko Toura
Death by Hanging is a darkly comic satire taking shots at corporal punishment and prejudice. It begins with the execution of a Korean man (Do-yun Yu) convicted of heinous crimes. However, he survives the hanging, though he loses his memories. This prompts some philosophical debate as to whether the condemned can still be punished for actions he can no longer recall. The authorities decide that the man, known only as R, must be reminded of his crimes before he can be hanged again, so they set out about recreating his alleged misdeeds.
Here, Oshima gets surreal once more, contrasting a documentary-like style with absurd plot developments. The director himself narrates much of the action, adding a certain meta quality. Most notably, he confidently melds tragedy with comedy in service of his political views. The result is a statement not just on the death penalty but on discrimination, particularly anti-Korean views in Japanese society.
5 ‘Empire of Passion’ (1978)
Starring: Tatsuya Fuji, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Takuzo Kawatani, Takahiro Tamura
Empire of Passion is about the affair between Seki (Kazuko Yoshiyuki), a married woman, and Toyoji (Tatsuya Fuji), a young rickshaw driver. Their passion leads them to conspire against Seki’s husband, Gisaburo (Takahiro Tamura), whom they murder and dispose of in a nearby well. However, their crime haunts them – literally, as Gisaburo’s ghost returns to torment Seki. Soon, the police begin snooping around as well, and the lovers’ guilt threatens to drive them to madness.
This is Oshima’s take on the kaidan (Japanese ghost story) genre, fusing eroticism with horror. However, it’s more reflective than explicit and uses genre tropes for social commentary. Fundamentally, it’s about desire, remorse, and vengeance, themes which Oshima explores coolly, from a distance. While Empire of Passion did not make as much of an impact as Oshima’s preceding film In the Realm of the Senses, it was nevertheless embraced at Cannes, winning the Best Director award.
4 ‘Taboo’ (1999)
Starring: Takeshi Kitano, Ryuhei Matsuda, Shinji Takeda, Tadanobu Asano
Oshima’s final film, Taboo, unfolds in a samurai household during the mid-19th century. It begins with the arrival of Kano (Ryuhei Matsuda), a young and handsome student warrior. His presence disrupts the dynamics within the esteemed group of swordsmen. Several of the samurai become attracted to him, especially their commander, Hijikata Toshizo (Takeshi Kitano). As a result, the unit turns into a pressure cooker of desire, conflict, and aggression.
These are dangerous men; they are part of a government unit formed to crack down on dissent. Kano, in particular, is revealed to be a cold-blooded killer who delights in bloodshed. This creates an interesting tension. The samurai brutally enforce the law and customs in public while privately violating them. It’s a well-told tale, if slow-paced at times. On the visual side, Oshima and cinematographer Toyomichi Kurita deserve particular praise for their meticulous, immersive recreation of this period in Japanese history. The sets and locations are certainly enjoyable to look at.
3 ‘Boy’ (1969)
Starring: Tetsuo Abe, Akiko Koyama, Fumio Watanabe
Boy is a coming-of-age story, kind of like Oshima’s take on François Truffaut‘s The 400 Blows. Toshio (Tetsuo Abe) is a boy growing up in a small rural village, where he struggles to find his place in a world marked by poverty and social upheaval. His home life is similarly chaotic. His father (Fumio Watanabe) is abusive, compelling his wife (Akiko Koyama) and son to scam people as a means of making money. Toshio dreams of escape, running away on trains or disappearing into stories.
The film is lean and bleak, with a brisk runtime and a small cast of characters. (In part, this was budgetary, as they had limited funds and only 15 crew members). Nevertheless, Oshima makes the most of these minimal elements. For example, he uses limited color palettes and distorted shots to capture the characters’ inner states. The real highlight, however, is the performance by Abe, in his sole screen appearance.
2 ‘Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence’ (1983)
Starring: David Bowie, Tom Conti, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Takeshi Kitano
Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence is an intelligent drama and a provocative look at wartime brutality and the clash of cultures. David Bowie stars as Major Jack Celliers, a British POW in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. Camp commander Yonoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto) is impressed by Celliers’s fortitude and gives him special treatment. Members of Yonoi’s entourage grow jealous and scheme to have the soldier killed.
As with Taboo, there are homoerotic undertones, conveyed mostly through visual metaphors. Oshima’s storytelling is bold and assured, though his best directorial decision was simply the inspired casting of Bowie, who had then done little acting outside of The Man Who Fell to Earth. His performance is stellar, far more restrained than one would have assumed. As a result, Christopher Nolanhas named the movie as an all-time favorite, saying, “Few films have been able to capture David Bowie’s charisma, but Oshima’s wartime drama seems tailor-made for his talents.”
1 ‘In the Realm of the Senses’ (1976)
Starring: Eiko Matsuda, Tatsuya Fuji, Aoi Nakajima, Yasuko Matsui
In the Realm of the Senses is far and away Oshima’s most controversial and impactful project. Based on a true story, it chronicles the tumultuous affair between a former sex worker, Sada Abe (Eiko Matsuda), and her employer, Kichizo Ishida (Tatsuya Fuji). They become consumed by their love, breaking societal norms and indulging in increasingly extreme sexual acts. However, their intense relationship spirals out of control, leading to a shocking conclusion.
This is Oshima at his most striking. He and his cast hold nothing back with this tale of lust and violence told through vibrant imagery and explicit, unsimulated scenes between the lovers. For this reason, the film was censored or outright banned in many countries. The Japanese government brought obscenity charges against the director. Nevertheless, the movie is certainly artistic and thoughtful rather than simply lewd. This is most evident in the ways the characters transgress social rules and gender roles, breaking free of the constraints of their time and place. This freedom comes at a price, however. It’s Oshima’s comment on the explosive, destructive consequences of repression.
This article was originally published on collider.com