Aconteceu no Fim da Era Tokugawa

Shohei Imamura's "Eijanaika" is an awesome film -- much better than I expected. This is a film painted on a much bigger canvas than Imamura's norm -- it's rather reminiscent of Dickens's "Barnaby Rudge", albeit with humor, nudity and sex. It is set in the turbulent last days of the Shogunate, and has a large number of characters one must try to keep track of -- something I didn't find that hard to do. Whatever it lacks in "subtlety", it makes up for in exuberance.

The opening film of this year's Japanese Film Festival, Shohei Imamura's Eijanaika was a mixed bag, but the opening is one to behold. Very noisy and extremely boisterous and colourful, there's a carnival like atmosphere in visiting the street markets, with its strange and curious looking circus like performers (see a snake being eaten alive, I kid you not), and others like a peep show for dirty old men.

Like the noisy nature of the street market, what I found distracting with Eijanaika is its lack of focus. Set during the time just before the Meiji Restoration, with the grip of Shoguns going into decline, and with foreign powers already set foot on the land of the rising sun, it has many facets on the corrupt ways and the power play between warlords, scheming and plotting against each other to gain a foothold of fame and fortune.

But anchoring the movie is the theme of love between the characters Genji (Shigeru Izumiya) and Ine (Kaori Momoi), though it's a strange love, which only gets weirder once it addresses its issue on jealousy, and embarks on a journey of manipulation, and sacrifice. Genji has spent 6 years in America, and upon arrival in Japan, finds himself like a fish out of water. He looks up his abandoned wife Genji, who is now a top performing showgirl in one of those peep shows, being sold against her wishes to a master, and has to pay off her debt. But this master-performer relationship might be more than meets the eye as Genji finds out, given her reluctance to leave with him and follow a dream of carving out a new life in America.

Somehow you'll loathe Ine's character, that slowly and surely you discover that she's quite a loose woman, using her charms and body to exact her wishes. But you doubt her true love for Genji no longer when you witness the amount of crap she has to go through for her man, despite his being unappreciative of the fact initially (though it's hard of course). Living a new life and going out of her comfort zone might be too much for the unskilled Ine, and perchance that's why the spurning of Genji's dream to live abroad, going back to where he came from and had experienced.

Like I mentioned, the narrative felt a bit too scattered with many characters and subplots, involving diabolical scheming no less, to give it a easier flow to follow. But appreciated was the fact that Imamura had instilled within the film some physical comedy involving a band of robbers, who after experiencing the success of their first hit, couldn't conceal their addiction for more.

The finale reminded me of Paprika, with plenty of song, dance, color and sheer shenanigans, involving mooning and peeing (this you just gotta see), but I thought it lost the plot with its firing on all cylinders on all parts of the target, rather than zooming in on critical areas and grouping the shots.

Japanese Films are great i have seen films from Akira Kurosawa, Yaziro Ozo, Takeshi Kitano, Shunji Iwai, and Takashi Miike these were great directors, which were in my book, which also includes Shohei Imamura's "Eijanaika" is an excellent film this film portrays the Yokohoma in one age The Prostitutes, The Samurais also portrays 2 Lovers nice film overall this was the first film i have seen by Mr. Imamura and i have absolutely enjoyed it not to mention it was greatly shot by the director the beauty of the scenery the fireworks the streets the flowers the people all beautifully shot 10101010 for this good film and to look back at the history it was extraordinary experience, excellent film well as good experience at first glimpse of works of Mr. Imamura.

TCM's Alicia Malone described this Shohei Imamura film as, among other things, "grotesque" and "messy". To that I would add too long and confusing. At no point could I fully understand what was going on in 1860s Japan as portrayed in this film. Were the peasants betrayed by both their own leaders as well as the Shogunate? Why was the film's hero imprisoned at the start of the film and how did he gain his release? Was it just me or was there a scene where Ine is found drowned only for her to appear later on? I'm sure that if I were to have grown up in Japan these things would have been clearer to me but I didn't and they weren't. Add a plethora of rather dull subsidiary gangster characters and Imamura's annoying habit of taking us away from the interesting central conflict that is the dysfunctional Ine/Genji marriage to dwell on these vacuous, amoral folks, for whom we care not one jot or tittle, and you can understand why I pulled the plug about ninety minutes in and would have done so sooner were it not for the respect I have for the director of "Insect Woman". C plus.

With its shattered scattered narrative, gritty visual and witty music, EIJANAIKA seems to give the truer picture of a time in Japanese history than any typical period picture with standard parameters would have. However, to get this impression of this two-and-a-half hour long film, one needs patience, interest in Imamura's work (It helps if one has seen and liked either Eeel, Vengeance, Narayama, or all of them) and liking for Japanese cinema. The start is very gripping. And its chaotic, musical, darkly funny finale remains one of the more memorable scenes involving mayhem one would encounter in a film from any timezone. It reminded me of the angry-crowd-flying-into-the-air end sequence of Vittorio De Sica's "Miracle In Milan". Overall it's fun to watch Imamura and his crew ("Stop, you funny Showmen! Or I'll Shoot" the ensemble is threatened)lending a musical ear to history.