It’s been a little while since you’ve heard from me, and you haven’t missed much. If you’re reading this, we’ve actually probably been in contact otherwise and you weren’t worried. But I’m back, here, and I’ve tired of format, so I’m just gonna blog for the blog of it.
A while ago, between physical media, bootlegs, and streaming services, I realized I had access to everything Nagisa Oshima directed. So, I figured, why not watch all of his stuff in chronological order? And that’s what I’m doing.
Nagisa Oshima is often referred to as the Japanese X. X being equal to Godard or Bunuel. He’s a career independent who relentlessly critiqueing Japanese culture from a left perspective over 30 years. Like Godard, Oshima was a critic before he was a filmmaker. He was a public intellectual as well, facing fascist Yukio Mishima in debates, and hosting a feminist TV documentary series where he interviewed middle and lower-class housewives about their political opinions.
He became obsessed with the US-Japan Security Treaty, bolstering the two nation’s military coorperation, entirely on Japanese soil. The ensuing student protests were called the Anpo Struggle, and Oshima made three films in 1960, all featuring the treaty protests. The most notable is his final studio picture, Night and Fog in Japan, a Bunuelian story of a wedding that can never begin due to the attendees’ leftist bickering.
Night and Fog in Japan is in my opinion a worthy double feature with Godard’s La Chinoise. Both are dense, insular tales of 1960s Trotskyism. I think Oshima gets the edge here for making his story so visually engaging, swinging the camera around, creating Brechtian reveries in the shadows.
This probably sounds pretty boring and judging by Letterboxd reviews, most people think it is. I guess it helps if you’re invested in Oshima as a filmmaker, or Japanese-American history or you find cinematic applications of Brechtian stagecraft to be interesting. And if you don’t find any of those things intriguing, why do you read this blog? It beats me.
I also watched MacGruber and thought it was very funny. Will Forte’s defensive dickhead character in an action movie is what I call a funny concept. I watched it on Amazon Prime; shame me.
See you later, gators.