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By John Demetry
There are three giants of Japanese cinema: Ozu, Kurosawa, and Mizoguchi. In
his trailblazing career, director Nagisa Oshima has cut these filmmakers
down like so many cherry blossom trees. As much as I love those masters, I
find Oshima's aesthetic and political lacerations absolutely thrilling. And
that's no less true for his deceptively "pretty" first film in 15 years: the
spellbinding Taboo.
In fact the issue of this film's prettiness is a significant one as the film explicitly deals with the power of beauty. Set in the 19th century, it meditates on the effects that Kano, a beautiful, androgynous new recruit, has on the samurai Shinsengumi. However, it's more profound, or embroidered, with meaning than just the issue of homosexual allure. Watching, you feel that this film-its themes, its visual and aural design--has been worked over by Oshima's imagination for the past 15 years. Although not atypical of Oshima, the plot is difficult to grasp after only one viewing (which doesn't bother me since I usually let other elements work on me). The specifics of the many intrigues within the Shinsengumi and surrounding many of the samurai's attraction to Kano, often taking place off-screen, were unclear to me. Nevertheless, the experience of how they untangle (or remain tangled) is entrancing. Its elliptical style is more classically constructed than earlier Oshima films--which were like thoughts written in lightning. As the boy at the film's center encourages different, conflicting responses from the other characters, the intentional, frustrating gaps in Taboo leaves many critics/viewers struggling to unlock its mysteries.
Takeshi's Buster Keaton-like stone face, transformed into an expressive mask by a motorcycle accident, is the subject of many shots in the film. Their meaning leaves us as puzzled as he is. The narrative untangling plays out from his point of view. A little Film Theory 101 is needed at this point. When a shot of an actor's face is followed by a shot of something else, we register this as what the actor is looking at. On a simple level, even if the actor's face is emotionless, we project an emotion onto the glance. For example, a shot of an actor followed by a shot of some food tells us that the actor is hungry. When "Beat" Takeshi is the actor and the subjects of the point-of-view shots aren't as simple as food, the meanings of point-of-view are complicated. The drama of the film is mostly based on Takeshi's meditations on the nature and extent of others' desire for Kano. Because of this increasingly limited perspective, Kano becomes an abstraction: of evil or of beauty. (Kano lives the role too. At one point he asks, "Do I have a future?") Kano is an aesthetic object whose true role in the political intrigues is uncovered by Takeshi only too late. His beauty is a distraction.
Even as the film begins, Oshima undercuts the prettiness with astonishing effects. Intertitles break up the narrative, often signaling things to come while cueing audiences to see the film as a constructed work. Also, the violence and gore in the film is aestheticized. And the score by Ryuichi Sakamoto is one of the most memorable in recent years. (After Snake Eyes, Little Buddha, and The Sheltering Sky, Sakamoto is clearly at the top of his art.) Sakamoto overlays the film with modern synth industrial beats - even the music in this film is analytical! The film's visual style begins fairly objectively. As the story becomes more convoluted and filtered through Takeshi's perceptions, it also becomes more stylized until we literally see his thought processes acted out in a landscape that could have come out of Fritz Lang's German Expressionist "Siegfried". Littered throughout are references to the styles of those three Japanese masters that Oshima attacked in the past. The dramatic use of moving camera and lighting are from Mizoguchi. The samurai violence and a character reminiscent of Toshiro Mifune are from Kurosawa. And the low camera set-ups and frontal staging are from Ozu. Oshima doesn't so much embrace them now, as reveal a complex relationship to them. With Takeshi's p.o.v. structuring the film, the act of filmmaking and of watching films is the subject of Taboo. He exposes the way film constructs audience point-of-view. And he details the political and moral responsibility inherent in that power. Oshima flips the cliché: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. He shows us the tragic beauty of the beholder. |
Director Nagisa Oshima (seated) with Ryuhei Matsuda and Takeshi Kitano on the set of Taboo 
© 1997-2002 BEI