Shohei Imamura’s brilliant, devastating television documentary In Search of the Unreturned Soldiers in Thailand (Mikikan-hei o otte: Tai-hen) concludes a pair of works begun the previous year with In Search of the Unreturned Soldiers in Malaysia. (Another documentary, Outlaw-Matsu Comes Home, 1973, functions as a coda to the two films.) The second film consists of […]
Tag Archives: Shohei Imamura
Why not? or What the heck!: this attitude marked a time of unrest in Japan, during the waning days of the Shogunate. Its devil-may-care appearance, though, may have been an attempt by many to claim some measure of control in the face of irresistible historical forces. The underside of Why not?: What can one do? […]
What man at some point hasn’t known a woman like this? Insatiable, at the point of orgasm when she makes love, Saeko releases a tremendous accumulated store of water capable of replenishing life and even a river. Let’s not dwell on the fact that a lover of hers has already suspiciously drowned. Yosuke used to […]
I do not pretend to know what is “documentary” and what “fiction” in Shohei Imamura’s Ningen Johatsu; but part of the pleasure of this fascinating, ambiguous film is the Keatsian negative capability that is required in order to navigate it. A plastics salesman, Tadashi Oshima, has been missing for more than a year; like thousands […]
Shohei Imamura’s snowy black comedy, Akai satsui, revolves around Sadako, the uneducated common-law wife of Riichi, who hasn’t married her because of her inferior status; Sadako had been housemaid to Riichi’s family. Masaru, the couple’s kindergarten-age son, was registered to his paternal grandparents for the same reason. (Sadako’s persistence officially corrects this.) Riichi, a university […]
Dennis Grunes 