Tabu

Nagisa Oshima's work is always visually exquisite. He has that finely honed, generations-old Japanese eye for detail which has served his artistry well over the last 50 years. It reveals itself to be the difference in the world of film that a Monet, Michelangelo, or Van Gogh is to sidewalk chalk drawings.

Decades ago, Oshima set out explore new territories, to leave formula and standard, approved plot progressions behind and delve into the deeper recesses of the human experience. What comes out of that are works of storytelling which require more attention and involvement on the part of the viewer than your typical Michael Bay or Renny Harlin flick. Not that pure escapist entertainment is a bad thing; far from it. But you don't generally come away from one of those features wanting to go sit at a table with your friends, staying up to the wee hours discussing what you've just seen and all the ramifications of each scene. In simpler terms, they don't enrich your intellect! (I think even Bay?s and Harlin?s most ardent fans can agree with me on that part :-) ).

"Gohatto" is the Japanese word meaning "Taboo" in its simplest form, so you know going in your about to see something out of the ordinary. Oshima has long had a fascination with the dichotomies in Japanese culture (and frankly most cultures) between how behavior is proscribed and how the more primal, instinctual urges (mostly sex) always find their way to the surface in spite of those mores. Oshima has also found a fascination in seeing how both Western and Eastern cultures have, at one time or another (or more than one), put strict moral taboos on homosexuality, adultery, and even on prostitution, but these strictures have never eliminated or even slowed down their existence.

"Gohatto" takes us into a world 150 years ago where such things don't exist on the surface but are fully integrated into what is real life just beneath. Whether such subject matter, or exploring Eastern cultures, particularly interests you or not, if you're interested in being challenged by the art that you see, "Gohatto" (like Peter Greenaway's recent "The Pillow Book") is a must-see film.

Even after seeing this movie more than 20 times it still draws me in. Some of the best actors in Japan take part in this flim, most noticeable is Beat Takeshi. The story line is simply jaw dropping. This is the type of film that Hollywood probably wouldn't even dare make. To me the subject matter isn't shocking, but I've spent time in Japan and studied their language and culture extensively, but some people are offended by this. Simply because they cannot get past the little detail that these strong, powerful men can have gay tendencies.

The movie follows Kano Sozaburo as he joins the Shinshigumi (feudal era police). (Also not here that most of the main characters, except Kano and Tashiro are based off actual historical/famous people.) As Kano joins the rank, his beauty and sword skill captivate the men around him, from the other new recruit to the top ranking officers. Suddenly people begin to die, murdered in the night. Any more will give away the story.

IF you get the chance to see this movie do. For some it may be hard to get all the details and understand the little intricacies involved, and the ending may confuse some (especially if you are just going off what the subtitles say). But give it a chance, it's a wonderful film, but not for everyone (and not for the whole family ;)

Oshima's first film in 14 years after illness was apparently directed from a wheel chair, and it's tempting to locate some of its static, formal qualities in the personal restrictions faced by the director. But this cool, intense, and very Japanese piece is stylistically rooted in the country's cinematic past, while at the same time offering provocative work familiar characteristic of this director. In his most famous film, Realm Of The Senses (aka: Ai No Corrida), made 25 years ago, dangerous sexual activity was explicit. In Gohatto (trans: Taboo), things are far less in the open. The expression of sex has been replaced with its obsession although, for Oshima, the irrationality of arousal still remains anti-authoritarian, as it creates impulses that are hard to resist.

For those more used to the straight samurai of old, Oshima's suggestions of cuddles beneath the kimono is a surprise (more outrage was generated in Japan, where it was felt more strongly that such suggestions ran against a proud tradition). One can never imagine stouthearted Toshiro Mifune, the most famous cinematic samurai from the previous generation, falling for another soldier and interrupting his role in Seven Samurai for a romp in the dojo. Cult actor/director 'Beat' Takeshi, here playing Captain Toshizo Hijikata, seems at first sight an odd choice for this sort of drama too, until one remembers the gay gunman he played so convincingly in Takashi Ishii's Gonin (1995). With his impassive face he reduces introspection to the reoccurring flicker of his (real life) tic, which, most aptly here, can suggest everything and nothing. Hijikata's internal narrative, first quizzical about Sozabura's lovers then perturbed about his effect on the garrison, suggests growing doubts resolved only in the final, memorable scene.

In Gohatto, much of the interest of the film lays in the degree in which Sozaburo's beauty arouses the interest of the men around him. Some are openly attracted to him (notably Tashiro, who shortly attempts to climb into the bed with him). Others are on the edge, like Inspector Yamazaki, charged with taking him to the brothel in Shimabara to introduce the youth to women. Most are affected in one way or another; most enigmatically are Hojikata and his superior and close colleague Commander Kondo (Yoichi Sai). As Hojikata observes, "a samurai can be undone by a love of men." But then he wonders too "Why are we both so indulgent with Sozabura?" and Kondo's rectitude and conspicuous silence hides, we suspect, a greater interest in the youth than he might wish to admit.

Oshima's visual scheme creates a film full of the bare, dark wood interiors of the militia base and the mud brown of uniforms, where just a few significant colours stand out. During the early beheading of the renegade samurai by Sozabuta, it is the red splash of the executed man's blood. At other times, Sozabuta wears a unique white robe (the Japanese colour of death). His is a presence and beauty shortly associated with a form of annihilation. In a place full of military men, that we see this feminine youth kill most often is no surprise. Compared to his contemporaries, he is the most adept at the sword unless fazed by romantic entanglements. It's an obvious irony that the object of homosexual affection is also the most deadly of the men; there's more in the fact that a group of iron-hearted soldiers can be so easily divided by an 'enemy' within, one neither fierce nor commanding.

There's another mystery in Gohatto, besides who exactly is sleeping with Sozabuta and who wants to. It's who is the murderer of Yuzawa (Tomorowo Taguchi), and doubts as to the truth of the case persist. This, and the attempt to apprehend the intruders at the base ("they call these samurai?") provide the main impetus of the plot. Like so many great Japanese films of the past, Oshima's says a lot in restraint. Here the arrangement of seated figures within the frame can suggest unspoken tensions, order is paramount, and the use of the camera is elegant and discreet. Some see the resulting style dull, when it is a slower, more contemplative way of seeing the world, one where not every question is answered.

What exactly is 'taboo' in Gohatto is clearly the issue of homosexuality - although confusingly for Western audiences such matters are not explicitly forbidden. Reference is made to the military code, which hangs on the barrack walls. Extracts appear on screen too, but no mention is made of prohibiting gay relations between soldiers. A man may be beheaded for illicitly borrowing money, but sleeping with his comrades at arms, while gossip worthy, is only really of concern when discipline is threatened. There "no secrets on Heaven and Earth (and) everyone knows it," says one of the intertitles, and Hojikata himself refers to the "tacit understanding" which normally keeps things in check. A policy which roughly equates to the modern American army's own "Don't ask, don't tell."

The film is helped immensely by Ryuichi Sakamoto's incessant, metronomic score, the steady beat of which considerably amplifies the obsessions and drawn out tensions of events. Like Oshima's interiors, it is uncluttered music, the muted colours dashed with an occasional significant tone. Now and again, urgency and violence break into this world: the initial beheading scene, the murderer's attacks, or the sword battle by the river. As a package, the result readily deserves art house admirers - especially as the director saves the best scene for last, expressing both Hojikata's final position, and a main thread of Gohatto, with hardly a cut more than necessary. Recommended.

"Gohatto" ("Taboo") is a fascinating film about the danger of beauty : to sum it up, a young "ephebe"'s ethereal beauty spreads like a plague, infecting a whole company of iron hard men in the process. As you must know by now, Oshima tackles in this film the forbidden subject of homosexuality among Samurais.

The movie's premise -and this is a bit of an understatement...- unleashed controversies and protests, in some Japanese traditional quarters : "taboo" indeed (-What about American cowboys, too ? Officially all white heterosexuals ? Yeeeah, right...) But I would argue that, somehow, the "homosexual act" itself is not the film's core subject : its characters discuss it quite openly; we are nowhere near the sniggering comedies of the West, the politically correct heavy handed lessons of Hollywood, or the louche coded homoerotic European art films. This ...is a Japanese movie : about beauty vs. discipline; self-denial and ideals; internal conflict and tragic resolution. Homosexuality here does not equate limp wristed / camp / victimised diffidence and other suchlike cliches -from the start, we are shown that Kano is a ruthless killer, and a master swordsman.

What disturbs, and gradually destroys, the supremely rigid order of the Samurai militia is Kano's personal aura, his -apparent !- frailty, this unnerves these iron hard warriors, the story of which is cleverly presented in a two-pronged attack by Nagisa Oshima.

On one hand, the master director plays it seriously, insisting on very static set pieces (where seated, immobile, Samurais discuss sex and murder without flinching); on the other, Oshima introduces elements of pure comedy....The name Shakespeare crops up (more about that later).

Firstly, this is a very formal film : static, slow, constructed, well-defined, about structures to be respected upon penalty of death, codes of honour (such as sexual : official initiation by geishas; or ethical : no betrayal of the group), hierarchical ("Which school do you belong to ?" they ask of each other), etc.. In a weird way, Takeshi's own facial half-paralysis serves the purpose of the film. Not to mention Kano's immaculate white attire, as opposed to the black armours all around.

But on the other hand, there are elements of comedy. The old unassuming guy who Kano meets turns out to be an officer ...and also a clumsy swordsman (joke fight scene), the colossus assigned to take the youth to a brothel sends the wrong signal ("-Er... don't !" he reminds himself), and so on. After a while, the story almost turns into a "whoddunit", except this time it's physical attraction we're talking about : which one of these hard men, beneath the surface, has not secretly fallen for Kano ?

I mentioned Shakespeare earlier : I saw this film with some Japanese young ladies, who confessed afterwards that , without the subtitles, they wouldn't have understood the language : old Japanese. But I am also thinking of the juxtaposition of levels : comedy and drama, love and ethics, saucy overtones, ...and the ineluctability of tragedy to unfold. It's pretty clear that the alleged lover, Tashiro, is not in fact, and that he will serve the hand of fate : sublime last scenes.

Finally, for all lovers of Japanese cinema, it's fun to spot Takeshi's mates, who usually feature in his trademark ultra-violent, Zen nihilistic, gangster movies : they're all here, under various fabulous wigs.

If you liked this film, you'll love Claire Denis's "Beau Travail", that was the best film of 2000.

Some people have a sexual magnetism so intense that it's scary

for everyone--gay, straight and disinterested--to be around them.

It's because any mature person can sense that a huge and

destructive power has been placed in the hands of someone not

responsible enough to wield it--and that can be pretty much

anyone so cursed/blessed. You feel as if a small, mercurial child

has his fingers on a hydrogen bomb. These are the most attractive

and the most frightening people in the world.

Nagisa Oshima's TABOO is a spellbinding quasi-thriller in which

every scene squirms with a sexual tension that's almost

unbearable. As in MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE, the tension between Japanese militarist face-saving and an

underlying homoeroticism sizzles to the boiling point.

Oshima has an understated gift for intensifying everything. The

simplest closeups have a charged, my-horniness-is-giving-me-a-migraine sizzle. TABOO resembles

the sixties British Z-movie STATION SIX SAHARA, in which Carroll

Baker enters a desert outpost of military men and causes libidos

to go bananas. Except that here, Oshima diagrams the psychology

as clearly as Kubrick might. TABOO does not perhaps have the

human depth to be a masterpiece, but it is a reminder that Oshima

is the cinema's reigning poet of the war between control and

uncontrol.