Gohatto

Ïn 1865, in Kyoto, in a period of fights among different clans, Sozaburo Kano (Ryuhei Matsuda) and Hyozo Tashiro (Tadanobu Asano) join a samurai legion to be trained as warriors. The beauty of the manipulative Kano sexually attracts the other men, including high ranking commanders, and he becomes lover of Tashiro.

"Gohatto" is a weird movie for westerns like me, who are not familiarized with Japanese culture. However, it is a beautiful movie, with a stunning music score and a wonderful photography. Although I have not completely understood the plot, specially the conclusion of the story, I found this movie very intriguing and I liked it. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Tabu" (Taboo")

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 ;)

"Gohatto" is set in mid-19th century Japan, among the Shinsengumi, a samurai militia created to uphold law and order and to defend the shogunate against reformist forces which sought to restore power to the Emperor. The central character is Sozaburo Kano, a teenage recruit to the force. Sozaburo is a beautiful young man, whose effeminate appearance inspires sexual desire among his comrades.

The film's title has been translated both as "Taboo" and "The Code", and refers to the strict code of discipline which prevailed among the samurai, severe violations of which could be punished by death. Despite the severity of the samurai code, however, homosexuality per se was not taboo, as it would have been in Western societies at this date. A British soldier of the Victorian era who had a sexual relationship with a comrade would have been liable to severe punishment and, at the very least, to dismissal from the Army in disgrace. In Japan, however, homosexual relationships among the samurai were tolerated. Sozaburo, however, poses problems for his superiors in that his quasi-feminine beauty leads to jealousies among the men and thereby endangers discipline. Although he is the central character, he is a passive one; the film is less about him than about the passions he unleashes, passions to which Sozaburo himself seems largely indifferent.

As a drama, "Gohatto" is not particularly interesting; my interest was held much more by its aesthetic aspects. To a Western audience, the film will seem strange and exotic, but its strangeness does not lie in flamboyance or showiness; indeed, I suspect that a Western film celebrating nineteenth-century gay life would be much more flamboyant in style. Rather, its strangeness lies in its austerity and restraint. The acting is deliberately stylised, almost ritualistic. The look of the film is also austere. It is set at the very end of what might be called the era of Old Japan. Although the 1850s and 1860s were the period when the Japanese were first starting to open their country up to the West, there is very little, if any, visual evidence of Western influence on show here. (Were the film to be set only a decade or two later, say around the time featured in "The Last Samurai", Western influences would have been much more visible).

Director Nagisa Ōshima's palette is a very limited one; the black and white of the samurais' uniforms, together with browns and greys. Bright colours are used very sparingly. Most of the film is set indoors, in traditional plain, sparsely furnished Japanese interiors. The result is an aesthetic which is austere, yet strangely beautiful- and also very masculine. Only briefly in the scene set in a brothel, where we see brighter colours and richer decoration, do we see a more feminine aesthetic. "Gohatto" can perhaps be thought of as an "art film" in the most literal meaning of the term, the sort of film where every shot seems to have been composed like a picture, and a work of icy, formal beauty. 7/10

Gohatto: 7/10

This was the only Kitano movie I had seen until Brother, and I thought he was someone else in the movie. And then I saw a "more impressive" actor... who turned out to be Kitano. Doh! The story of this was very interesting, and I'm not sure how it'd go over in America. It explores homosexuality and it's relative openness in the samurai, and is based around a handsome young man, who a lot of men fall in love with. These men start turning up dead, and a jealous member of the clan is suspected. The movie gets confusing at times, but I think that is more because of a cultural difference than script downfalls. Kitano is brilliant in this one as the captain who seems to be struggling to hide his affections for the young man (Ryuhei Matsuda as Sozaburo Kano). There are several branching storylines, but they all lead back to the main one. Not a masterpiece of anything, but more quality Asian cinema.

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.