Sada

[Mark Schilling]

From: Mark Schilling <schill at gol.com>
To: <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Re: Sada

Jonathan Crow asked for critical opinions on Obayashi's Sada. Here's mine,
from the April 14 issue of the Japan Times. Incidentally, the film -- part
of Kazuyoshi Okuyama's Cinema Japanesque lineup -- tanked at the box
office. 


Sada (4/14/98)

Produced by Shochiku, PSC; screenplay by Yuko Nishizawa; directed by
Nobuhiko Obayashi. With: Hitomi Kuroki, Kippei Shena, Norihei Miki, Bengal,
Tsurutaro Kataoka. Running time: 132 mins.  

The story of Sada Abe, the former geisha who strangled her lover and
severed his penis as a keepsake, exploded into a sensation of Lorena
Bobbitian proportions following her arrest for murder in 1936. Both Sada
and Lorena became figures of mass media notoriety and objects of public
sympathy, with more fans, understandably, on the female side of the sexual
divide, but there were important differences between the two. Lorena acted
out of rage and fear, Sada, out of love and passion. Also, Lorena's story,
once so beloved by tabloid journalists and talk show hosts, has since faded
into a pile of old clippings and stale jokes, while Sada's continues to
fascinate after more than six decades. 
      It has inspired several films, the most notable and controversial
being Nagisa Oshima's 1976 *Ai no Corrida** (In the Realm of the Senses),
whose graphic depictions of sadomasochistic sex made it unreleasable in its
original form in Japan, though a bowdlerized version eventually appeared. 
      Now another director of Oshima's generation, Nobuhiko Obayashi, has
filmed the Sada story, with a sharply different approach. Whereas Oshima
frontally challenged standards of censorship and taste, Obayashi takes an
ironic, distanced, stylized view of his by now familiar material, while
giving it a visual gloss reminiscent of MTV in its more sophisticated
moments. 
      A filmmaker since the age of six (his first production was a Popeye
cartoon hand-drawn on a roll of 35 mm film), a director of 27 films since
his 1977 feature debut *House,** Obayashi works with the confidence of a
natural talent, the skill of an experienced technician, the invention and
daring of an artistic anarchist. But though he is never dully conventional,
he has been wildly inconsistent, producing both *Futari** (1992), a drippy
tale of sisterly love beyond the grave, and *Onna Zakari** (1994), dazzling
expose of modern office and sexual politics.    
       The reason, I think, has less to do with the usual peaks and valleys
of directing careers than fundamental attitudes: Obayashi is at heart still
the kid with a camera for whom filmmaking is the best kind of play, but
like that kid he finds it hard to step back and examine what he is doing
with a cold, critical eye. One result is *Mizu no Tabibito,** the 1993
eco-fable based on the Issun Boshi story that must have been terrific fun
to make, with all those neat Hi-Vision effects, but is little more than a
maniacally busy kiddie cartoon 
      That same indiscriminate antic spirit is still evident in *Sada.**
Obayashi frames it as an early Showa stage play, complete with a roue
narrator and broad comic staging, as though the actors were performing in a
prewar Asakusa variety hall. The object, I suppose, is to place the
narrative in its period while commenting on it from the heights of
postmodern irony. In certain scenes, this approach gives what could have
been dreary domestic tsuris a new, wacky, spin, as when Sada (Hitomi
Kuroki) argues with her mother about her marriage plans and, storming out
of the room, sends Mom -- and the giant white radish she holding --
whirling like the farm house in *The Wizard of Oz.** 
      But the general effect of the archly self-conscious tone is
offputting and, at times, offensive. What are we to make of a rape scene,
with the victim Sada as a fourteen-year-old girl, played with the gestures
of vaudeville farce? Laugh? Admire the director's sophistication? Or
wonder, as I did, at his insensitivity? 
      Give Obayashi credit, though, for making a real attempt to discover
the motives for Sada's actions, not simply exploit them for kinky thrills.
The story begins with Sada's lonely girlhood in a poor  family in downtown
Tokyo, but quickly shifts to her fourteenth year and her nightmare
introduction to sex by a handsome brute of a college student (Masaku
Ikeuchi). She is saved by Okada (Kippei Shena), a medical student who wears
creepy dark glasses, but has a warm, consoling touch. She falls in love,
but soon after Okada announces that he is leaving for good. His farewell
present to Sada is a scalpel, with which he cuts an imaginary heart from
his chest, saying it is hers to keep. He is, we learn in a voice-over, a
victim of leprosy -- a disease then equivalent to a sentence of permanent
exile from humanity. 
      Crushed by this desertion, but unable to forget Okada -- or her
vision of his bleeding heart -- Sada becomes a geisha, a prostitute and, by
the age of 29, the lover of Tachibana (Bengal), an angel of mercy who
happens to a member of the Nagoya city council. Tachibana, a  fuss-budget
with a heart of gold, not only rescues Sada from harlotry, but arranges for
her to apprentice at the ryotei (teahouse) owned by Tatsuzo (Tsurutaro
Kataoka), a rake with a smooth, sexy manner and an insanely jealous wife. 
      Smitten, Sada experiences pleasures in Tatsuzo's arms that she had
never known from her thousands of faceless Johns. She also soon finds
herself on the street when his wife discovers their affair. Tatsuzo follows
her to a nearby inn, where they abandon themselves to days and nights of
ecstatic lovemaking. Then Tatsuzo leaves her for three days and Sada nearly
goes out of her mind with desire. When he returns, she is determined that
he will be hers forever. Feeling he has already tasted all that life has to
offer, Tatsuzo allows her to wrap a pink cord around his neck and pull it
thrillingly -- and then fatally -- tighter. 
      As the fourteen-year-old Sada, Hitomi Kuroki is glaringly wrong, as
the mature Sada, unquestionably right. In those eyes glittering with an
insatiable desire and a love never consummated or forgotten, we can see
dissolution, sadness and a terrible purity. Over the distracting noise of
her director's cinematic games, she gives us the Sada of our imagination --
or unquiet dreams.



----------
> From: Jonathan C Crow <jccrow at umich.edu>
> To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
> Subject: Sada
> Date: Friday, November 13, 1998 5:52 AM
> 
> 
> Hello.  My name is Jonathan Crow and I've been lurking for far too long
on
> this list. I'm a recent graduate from the Center of Japanese Studies
> program at the University of Michigan. I have a strong interest in
> Asian cinema, particularly in  the avant-garde and documentary varieties.
> 
> Anyway, I was in Taiwan a while back and there I saw a recent film called
> "Sada".  As the name implies, the film was a reworking of the notorious
> Abe Sada story, most famously depicted in "In the Realm of the Sense."
> This film was incredibly self-reflexive and stylized.  Has anyone else
> seen this?  What was the critical reaction in Japan?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Jon