Pigs, Pimps, and Pornographers

Pigs and Battleships

"I am interested in the relationship of the lower part of the human body and the lower part of the social structure" -- Shohei ImamuraShohei Imamura won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1997 for The Eel, and in doing so, he became one of only four directors to win that award twice. Though Imamura had been making films in Japan for 40 years, the international success of The Eel gave acclaim to a director little-known outside of cinephile circles. And it's about time; Imamura's brilliant, relentless exploration of the lower classes makes him arguably one of the greatest living directors and indisputably the most important filmmaker to come out of post-war Japan. Japanese cinema has flourished in this decade, but 17 years ago, when Imamura won his first Palm d'Or for Ballad of Narayama, the director served as a reminder that Japanese cinema still existed. It is interesting to note what some of Imamura's peers were doing around this time: Kon Ichikawa (The Burmese Harp, Fires on the Plain), the "Japanese Frank Capra," was a spokesperson for a cigarette company; Nagisa Oshima (Cruel Story of Youth, In the Realm of the Senses), the most well-known internationally, supported himself as a host for a television show about housewives; and Akira Kurosawa's films were only made possible by foreign support. This is not to discount the impact and talent of these filmmakers -- it is to underscore just how remarkable and important Imamura's 40-year-career is. His output certainly doesn't match the likes of a John Ford or a Fassbinder, but in his 18 films, Imamura has faithfully portrayed an often under-represented lower class of Japanese society.

Born into an upper-middle-class family, the son of a doctor, Shohei Imamura was 18 years old when World War II ended. Like countless others, his life took a sharp turn during this turbulent time. The end of the war brought millions of prosperous citizens to near-poverty, forcing them to join the world of bootlegging and prostitution to make enough money to survive. In 1945, Imamura joined the black market selling cigarettes and liquor. This introduction to the lower class of Japanese society strongly influenced his thematic explorations as a filmmaker. Nearly all of his films became about the people he met and the experiences he had during this time. To Imamura, this was the "real" Japan -- the under-represented subculture full of a bustling, electric vitality.

Imamura began his career in filmmaking as an assistant director to Yasujiro Ozu (Tokyo Story, An Autumn Afternoon) in 1951. Although Imamura respected Ozu, he completely rejected his approach to filmmaking, in which Ozu would rehearse his actors until they became devoid of emotion, acting more like an automaton or a "model." Imamura then moved on to work with Yuzo Kawashima (Shinagawa Path), a director he greatly admired and about whom he wrote a book. After working on some screenplays with Kawashima, Imamura began directing in 1958.

The cinema of Imamura is quite unsettling. He takes what society would call vile and makes beautiful meaning out of it. He pays tribute to the lower classes of Japanese society by creating brilliant canvases, yet harshly portraying these characters' plight and will to survive. Survival is a means to an end in Imamura's films. With a lovely sort of vengeance, his characters destroy the stereotypes of "official" Japanese culture. They do not operate by predictable social standards, but rather by instinct. They behave like animals, and their selfishness and greed equip them with the fervor and the passion to survive. However victimized, however down-and-out in the seedy "underworld," Imamura's characters always prevail. His films are not spiritual; they are real!

Vengeance Is Mine

Everything that society would deem not acceptable, Imamura portrays. But when Imamura depicts the underbelly of "pigs, pimps, and pornographers," he is not looking at them judgmentally or as role models. He depicts incest, rape, and violence in a way that appears beautiful -- but it is not these abhorrent acts that are beautiful, but the people's reactions and will to survive in the face of them. Imamura is known as an anthropologist of Japanese society, and as an anthropologist he goes underneath the surface of things to chronicle not only the history but also the phenomenon of being human. To survive, his characters must give in to the primal desires of sex and violence; for Imamura, it is a sorrowfully joyous leap of self-sustainment.

"I like to make messy films," Imamura once said. And indeed, his pictures are anything but formulaic. But Imamura's sometimes chaotic structure reflects what is going on his films. His scope frames are rich and abundant. You sometimes feel like they might break. The Japan he captures is a place close to his heart -- a world of greedy, self-interested, deceitful people just trying to make a buck to survive. And although at first, an Imamura film can be quite shocking, its value and meaningfulness often become evident later.

Imamura's peer, Kenji Mizoguchi (Ugetsu, Street of Shame), is renowned for his empathy toward women. In the cinema of Mizoguchi, heroines are to be comforted, as their ultimate fate is desertion or misfortune. In Imamura's films, however, heroines transcend the stereotype of subservient, desolate Japanese women. His women are resilient, profoundly determined to survive. Even when victimized, raped, and beaten, they somehow adapt and overcome no matter what. Although these women possess a sort of selfishness and amorality, these values arm them to prevail through the tumultuous environment of this "underworld." Because they survive and persist however they have to, their fate is entirely in their control. Imamura truly believes that women are stronger than men, that they have a greater understanding of life. "The women who have marked me most in life are the lower-class women I met during my black-market days," the director has explained. "They weren't educated and they were vulgar and lusty, but they were also strongly affectionate and they instinctively confronted all their own sufferings."

Imamura's The Insect Woman (1963) has been said to be the director's "most complete portrait of a Japanese woman in society." In it, the protagonist turns to heading a prostitution ring in Tokyo while supporting her daughter at home. Like an insect, the woman does everything to survive at the bottom of the social ladder. She goes emptyhanded to Tokyo, where she becomes a prostitute and makes good money. In its portrayal of a woman hardening in order to make it the business world, Insect has been compared to Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Marriage of Maria Braun.

The second film in the series, Pigs and Battleships (1961), marks the beginning of the Imamurian play on "grotesque symbolism." The filthiness of the pigs provides a perfect backdrop for the nature of his characters. The film is set at a naval base in Yokusuko, Japan, right after the end of World War II. When the U.S. fleet sails in, the women liven up, and the wheeler-dealer gangsters maneuver to skim off the cream. By the time we get to Ballad of Narayama, this motif is wonderfully refined.

The series begins November 2 with Imamura's masterpiece Vengeance Is Mine. It is considered to be one of the most detailed and intense portraits of a serial killer in the history of cinema. The film is based on a 1975 novel dealing with the trail of the crime left by Enokizu Iwao. Ken Ogata gives an outstanding performance as Enokizu. When the novel came out, there was feverish enthusiasm among directors all anxiously awaiting to see who would get the project. The winner was Imamura, whose direction of his previous works succeeded in dealing with the human mind by delving to its very core. Imamura has poured all of his knowhow and strength into this film to portray "all crime, the present era, and man."