Recently, the Criterion Collection released two of director Nagisa Oshima’s better known films, ‘Empire of Passion’ and ‘In the Realm of the Senses’. For Japanese new wave fans this moment has been a long time coming. After three Oshima retrospectives in NY in the last year, a DC retrospective in March and April, these releases seemed inevitable. That said, It’s a little disappointing that they chose to release the two films that are already widely available. I would have LOVED to see a DVD of Shonen (1969), Death by Hanging(1968), or even Violence at Noon (1966) but these two films satisfy my Oshima obsession (for now). The transfers are magnificent. The interviews with Oshima and line producer Koji Wakamatsu (a director that deserves the criterion treatment in his own right) are both revealing and stimulating.
Although many treat the two films as companion pieces I found it easier to view them as mirrors of each other. In both films sexuality is used as a release from the alienation of modern life. The act of sex is given a utility beyond mere satisfaction. It becomes an expression of these characters agency. Oshima seems to be acutely concerned with the degree to which individuals are able to control their own desires and urges. Are we able to express ourselves? Or are our desires dictated by the naturalized social codes we are surrounded by? In both films, Oshima’s critique is unrelenting and in many ways disheartening. The films characters never truly escape the ‘reality’ they are running away from. Although sex offers them a temporary outlet, the characters social status and their expected behavior constantly disrupts their conscious desire to escape. So does Oshima argue that resistance is futile? Is acceptance the only real option? Or is the desire to live one’s own life, the desire to set one’s own morals, and make one’s own choices regardless of consequences the only real way to live in our increasingly immoral and disheartening times?
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