One of the most influential of art-house works, Oshima's sexy classic is intimate, painful but ultimately flawed. Essentially a comment on the repression of contemporary Japanese society filtered through the lens of the militaristic rule of the 1930s, we see how sex and death are inextricably linked in the best and worst ways. Thrills and excitement, the line between this world and the next; all are drawn carefully and deliberately. The oft-discussed explicitness is honestly only occasionally eyebrow-raising (that wild egg scene later referenced in John Cameron Mitchell's wonderful SHORTBUS); the real focus of the film appears via the masterful close-ups of the joyful, stimulated faces of its leads, who fucking go for it in as many ways as possible. Great on Oshima to make this film; it's still trailblazing in all its full-frontal, erect, wet glory.
I'm knocking a point off for the pointless child nudity, which while not sexual was by far the most uncomfortable part of the film.
One of the most influential of art-house works, Oshima's sexy classic is intimate, painful but ultimately flawed. Essentially a comment on the repression of contemporary Japanese society filtered through the lens of the militaristic rule of the 1930s, we see how sex and death are inextricably linked in the best and worst ways. Thrills and excitement, the line between this world and the next; all are drawn carefully and deliberately. The oft-discussed explicitness is honestly only occasionally eyebrow-raising (that wild egg scene later referenced in John Cameron Mitchell's wonderful SHORTBUS); the real focus of the film appears via the masterful close-ups of the joyful, stimulated faces of its leads, who fucking go for it in as many ways as possible. Great on Oshima to make this film; it's still trailblazing in all its full-frontal, erect, wet glory.
I'm knocking a point off for the pointless child nudity, which while not sexual was by far the most uncomfortable part of the film.
