ai no corrida, other oshima

[Marty Mudd]

i recently viewed Ai No Corrida.  it is very artful, and isn't pornographic
in that it certainly explores issues of obsession and sexuality.  however, i
was forced to take a break as soon as the sex turned sado-masochistic.  i
found that Oshima probed so deeply into the depths of psychological
obsession, he touched on facets of human sexuality for which i simply was
not prepared to deal with.  however, although it was erotic, i did not see
how it was the "ultimate portrayal of sensuous passion" as proclaimed by the
taglines...  it seemed more the examination of the frighteningly human
characteristic of compulsion...

anyway, my question regards other Oshima films.  i wonder if Seishun Zankoku
Monogatari was banned at its release...  although nowhere near as explicit
as Ai No Corrida it contained scenes which would have warranted prohibition
in the U.S. in 1960.  Also, what kind of reception is Gohatta receiving in
Japan?  Homosexual love is definitely a touchy subject here in the U.S.

cheers!

-- 
Martin Mudd
Williams College
Martin.D.Mudd at williams.edu



> From: M Arnold <ma_iku at hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
> Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 02:43:10 +0000
> To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
> Subject: Ai no Corrida, etc.
> 
> Hi everyone.
> 
> Last weekend I went up to Tokyo and was able to see Shikijitsu and Ai no
> Corrida.  Shikijitsu wasn't as bad as I had heard, but it wasn't great.
> Anno still seems to be working out the themes he's been wrestling with since
> Evangelion.  There were times that I thought the newer film's
> pseudo-psychoanalysis bordered on the look of a teenage idol "image" video,
> though.  (The same thing might be said of Love and Pop, but in this case I
> felt more removed from the girl's problems... probably because the
> 'director' was filming and narrating most of the time.  What do other people
> think?)  The cinematography was pretty good though, and overall I thought
> the movie was worth watching.
> 
> Ai no Corrida needs no introduction, of course.  It looked wonderful on a
> movie screen.  As far as the censorship goes, there was really hardly any
> mosaic; just enough to cover 'it' up, which sometimes meant nothing more
> than one tiny beige dot wiggling back and forth between the characters'
> legs.  In fact it's probably the least-censored "porno" I've seen in Japan,
> and there were a couple of split-second shots that I thought the censors may
> have missed.  The climax (*snip*) wasn't censored at all, but I don't recall
> if that scene was edited in the previous Japanese version or not.  Anyway,
> at this point there seems to be hardly any visual difference between
> censored and not censored.  I wonder how long it will be before totally nude
> bodies become legal.
> 
> Saturday was Cine Amuse's 5th year anniversary.  All movies were only 500
> yen!  I didn't even have to use my gaijin waribiki.  The seats were full and
> the audience for Corrida was fairly mixed; young men and women, some couples
> and a number of older men.  The theater also had a special "ladies' only"
> section reserved for women who came without male accompaniment.  This being
> a 'porno' movie in Japan, I'd be fibbing if I said I couldn't imagine a
> reason for that... but it still struck me as a little strange.  Or is this
> something that Cine Amuse does for all of its films?  (We've all heard the
> stories about trains, but are dark movie theaters dangerous as well?)  Do
> other theaters do anything like this?
> 
> I visited that wine bar I mentioned here again and spoke with the owner a
> little about the controversy surrounding Ai no Corrida in the 1970s.  He
> said he never saw the film, but he remembered that people would travel to
> Europe as well as Guam to see the film unedited.  I knew about the trips to
> Europe, but this was the first time I had heard that Oshima's film was also
> being shown in Guam at the time.
> 
> Mike Arnold 
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