An Introduction to Anthropology

THE PORNOGRAPHERS / Jinruigaku Nyumon: Erogotshi Yori
(Shohei Imamura, 1966, Japan, 35mm, 128 mins.)

I am interested in the relationship of the lower part of the human body and the lower part
of the social structure. I want to make messy, really human, Japanese, unsettling films.
-- Shohei Imamura (1926-2006)

*****

As the title indicates, Mr. Ogata (Shoichi Ozawa) makes dirty movies, but he
does many other things besides. In this discursive, darkly humorous portrait
of repression in a rapidly-changing society, director Shohei Imamura takes pornography as his starting point before moving on to incest, mental illness,
the women's liberation movement, and more. You name it, and it's in there.

This makes The Pornographer: An Introduction to Anthropology, as the original Japanese title would have it (similarly, 1963's Insect Woman is subtitled Entomological Chronicles of Japan), both exhausting and entertaining—or to quote Imamura, "Messy, really human, Japanese, unsettling." And pissed-off without succumbing to polemics.

Black Rain (1989)

Ogata lives in Osaka with hairdresser Haru (Sumiko Sakamoto). As in Black Rain,
the creature in this case is a carp. (Pigs, eels, whales, and snakes also enter into
his work.) Haru, Ogata's landlady, believes her recently deceased husband has been reincarnated as a fish, and since it's always watching her—the poor thing is kept in
a too-small aquarium and can barely move—she can't fully commit to her favorite tenant. (Tsai Ming-liang swiped the same conceit for What Time Is It There?)

Consequently, Ogata, who doubles as a part-time pimp, isn't getting much
action with the increasingly unhinged Haru, but her adolescent daughter, Keiko (Keiko Sagawa), is starting to attract his attention. Haru's college-age son, Koichi (Masaomi Kondo), on the other hand, is turning into a nuisance. He's always asking for money, and when Ogata isn't able to help him out, Koichi steals what he needs.

Like Michael Powell's chilling Peeping Tom (1960)—with laughs instead of chills—
this B&W CinemaScope feature explores voyeurism, but that doesn't make it voyeuristic (there's little nudity). Yet the viewer become implicated by watching.

The Eel (1997)

Ogata is shown shooting his 8mm pornos, but Imamura is just as concerned
with his complicated personal life as his colorful profession. Ogata is a pornographer in every sense of the word—not just through the movies he makes (and the "virgins" he procures), but through the way he treats his adopted family. Forcing the troubled Keiko to take the place of her ailing mother, for instance, only pushes her towards pornography. Arguably, this makes Imamura a pornographer, as well.

By extension, the filmmaker seems to suggest that the state is the ultimate pornographer. When men like Ogata aren't allowed to follow their true passions—
in his case, making blue movies for sex-starved salarymen—those passions
can curdle into perversion and depravity, infecting everyone in their vicinity (by
the end, Ogata has gone way over the edge). It’s not so much that Imamura is taking a stand for pornography as for freedom of expression. In all its forms.

Every time I watch one of Imamura's pictures,
I learn something. And every time I'm enthralled.
-- Martin Scorsese

*****

Shohei Imamura in brief: After assisting Yasujiro Ozu on Early Summer, The Flavor
of Green Tea Over Rice, and Tokyo Story, the director debuted with Stolen Desire in 1958. (About Ozu, he has said, "I wouldn't just say I wasn't influenced by Ozu:
I would say I didn't want to be influenced by him.") Along with only two other international filmmakers, he has won the Palme d'Or twice, for Ballad of Narayama (1983) and The Eel (shared with Abbas Kiarostami's equally humanist Taste of Cherry).

Click here for my review of Vengeance Is Mine (1979).

Part of the 18-film retrospective A MAN VANISHES - THE LEGACY OF SHOHEI IMAMURA, The Pornographers opens on 11/1 (10 of the titles are unavailable
on video). The Northwest Film Forum is located at 1515 12th Ave. between Pike
and Pine on Capitol Hill. For more information, please click here or call 206-329-2629. Co-curated by the NWFF's Adam Sekuler, the series continues to seven
other cities. A commemorative tour book featuring essays by Scorsese and others
will be available at all venues. Free of charge on the 10/26 opening night (Stolen Desire), it will cost $5 thereafter. Images from the NWFF and Senses of Cinema.