Mandara

Akio Jissoji is an obscure name to Western audiences. His work has only been seen widely thru his work on the original Ultraman series although it was usually uncredited in the American version. Possessed of strong visual style, Jissoji's work is very distinctive, comparable to Orson Welles or Carl Dreyer. Even his work on Ultraman (a children's program) show his preference for unusual camera angles and unique visual compositions. After his work in Japanese television, Jissoji found himself working with the Art Theater Guild, an experimental film company. They produced several films of his, Mandara being the second one. Unfortunately, Jissoji shares with his fellow Japaese film makers a fascination with S/M sexual practices and exhibits the usual Japanese misogyny seen in "erotic" films of this time. Your willingness to watch this sort of behavior will strongly effect your ability to sit though this production.

Upon first viewing, one is struck by the visual compositions, image juxtaposition and the sound production. Actually that's all there is to be struck by for the first few minutes as it takes a while for the story to get going. I didn't mind as nearly every frame of this film is a masterwork of composition and camera movement. Unfortunately the verbal part of the film is problematic for several reasons. First, the dialog is very art-house which would probably be hard to follow in Japanese let alone a translation. Second, the English translation in the version I saw is very poor and frequently confusing. Third, the film almost requires a decent knowledge of Japanese Buddhist philosophy not just Buddhism in general. Fourth, the film seems very much a product of the turbulent times it was produced and the characters seem motivated by the issues of that time in Japan.

The story, as far as I could figure from the jumbled subtitles, is about a group of strange modern Buddhists who gain followers by assaulting couples that the leader has been watching and raping the women. The couples then become members of the sect! The group spends time performing ceremonies and discussing esoteric philosophy. Then once again rape and beat some new woman or one that's already in the sect. This might be meaningful to Japanese audiences but I admit to being in the dark. Unfortunately, the rape scenes go on for extended periods of time and due to the confusing translation they leave a stronger impression then the dialog. It's also possible that the rape scenes just assured the film makers an audience for an otherwise esoteric film. Also the film is over 2 hours long!

Sad, since this is otherwise one of the best looking films I've seen.

The Midnight Eye reviews of Jissoji's films, ostensibly a very well written piece that is almost the only critical source readily available, reads a spiritual importance that should place Jissoji next to Dreyer and Bresson, it considers them successful films on Buddhist thought. Stylistically they couldn't be more different but what about the content, does Midnight Eye horribly misrepresent their intention?

"life and death are a great matter, transient and changing fast"

This is a mantra to the films. In all three of them, Mujo, Mandala, and Uta, Jissoji grapples with basic tenets of Buddist thought. Impermanence, emptiness, the practice and ethos of the faith, he calls these into question. For Bergman that question was posed and declined, it was the spiritual self doubt and the existential cry in an indifferent universe that mattered. The important thing to note as we enter into a dialectic with these films is that Jissoji, who was also brought up in a religious family, made films for the Art Theater Guild. Like his mentor Nagisa Oshima and like Oshima's mentor Yasuzo Masumura before him, he seeks out the individuality of his protagonists in a madness that defies society and liberates from it, in a youthful rejection of the old. Jissoji's films then are not profound examinations of faith but radical portraits of rebellion.

Mandalas are diagram symbols used as objects for meditation by esoteric Vajrayna traditions, they represent a sacred space for the concentration of the mind. So what is revealed to take place inside this sacred space, how is our concentration challenged or rewarded? First, Jissoji's thesis.

Emptiness.

In Mandala Jissoji grapples with the idea of emptiness. Shunyata posits that no object consists of a solid core, and the idea of the self is an illusion. If we peel a cabbage we get the core, but if we peel an onion? The duality is pushed forward by two main characters, one yearns for a release from time, the condition that subjects living things to decay and death. He seeks that release in sex, and enrolls in a secret society that advocates eroticism as a means of ecstacy. The other is a student of radical politics, for him time is something he's willing to struggle against, and the eternal revolution towards a classless Marxist society is the realisation of that struggle. Within time, within the life we are allotted, we must strive to better the world. The radical politics of the New Wave shine better here. Oshima, but also people like Wakamatsu and Masao Adachi, would approve.

I love how in all three films the crucial turning point is consumated from behind masks, with something of a bestial or mystical nature. These moments are an apotheosis for Jissoji's cinema.

In a fascinating sequence in Mandala, we see the members of an utopian cult dance a dionysic dance around a fire wearing grotesque masks. These people are outside time now, as they desired all along, outside the self. From a Buddhist standpoint this is desirable. But Jissoji films the scene with an air of demonic perversity, he shows us that these human beings are not liberated in their wild dance after all, but rather the wild dance reveals their corrupt souls.

The ending of Mandala, like that of Uta hinted at above, is poignant in that aspect.

We see Shinichi and the members of the cult depart from a nameless shore on a ship. The metaphor is strong and can't be missed, these people are willing to literally pursue a life outside life. But as the movie fades in the next scene we see the shore littered with their corpses and the broken remains of their boat. Their faces in death are fixed in grimaces that reveal painful, horrid, final moments.

Beyond the thematic reaction, thought has been truly paid here. The business with masks is one, Buddhist tenets turned into visual clues is another. In Mujo, life was transient and so was the camera, life is in constant flux and so the placement of the actors often varies tremendously from shot to shot. In Mandala, Jissoji distorts space with widescreen lenses, literally creating the sacred space of a mandala. When Shinichi begins to live outside time, the movie turns black and white. In Uta, the total awareness of the present moment is rendered with the ticking sounds of a clock, and when the houseboy sits down to eat his tasteless grub, we get close shots of his throat swallowing. The boy maintains an unruptured state of concentration, and the camera follows that state.

I've tried to paint a vivid picture without many specifics (the films are rich in material to discuss) that hopefully places the films in a context. Jissoji's New Wave calls moral codes into question, considers meditation a practice of death, and the pursuit of liberation a terrible folly.

Buddhism is the recipient of his scathing New Wave and Buddhist thought is formulated only to be rejected, to receive scathing contempt or bitter irony.

From a spiritual standpoint, I disagree. Buddism is, deliberately or not, misrepresented in these films. But as New Wave I can't deny their power, and more, opposed to Godard's contemptuous attacks on the bourgeoisie or Wakamatsu's liberation from society through nihilism, this is thoughtful cinema that raises valid points, New Wave expression that feels vibrant and alive.

To return to the opening statement found in the Midnight Eye review, there's room enough to discuss Jissoji in the context of Dreyer. A more apt comparison, is to discuss him in the context of his peers. That he remains, along with Kazuo Kuroki, probably the most esoteric of the Nuberu Bagu is telling. Cinema is not a casually irreverent affair with the fashionable in films like Uta, it's difficult and demands we rise to the occasion, to join the discourse and maintain our own state of concentration.

"Mandara" (1971) is the second part of director Jissoji's "Buddhist Trilogy" (The first part, "This Transient Life" (1970) is extraordinary, and is HIGHY RECOMMENDED to any serious fan of cinema.)

This "Buddhist Trilogy" is not about some kind of upbeat New-Age Buddhism. Rather, it considers human morality in relation to the Void, and presents a vision of life unconstrained by standard social norms. In "Mandara", it seems Jissoji takes a wholly amoral stance - the perspective "beyond good and evil" familiar from de Sade or Nietzsche. The plot involves extreme sexual violence and a bizarre coercive cult (one part Charles Manson and two parts Shinto animism).

The protagonists of "Mandara" are leftist student radicals; it's implied their 1968 idealism has degenerated into 1971 nihilism. From our era, it's very difficult to understand the attitudes of this milieu. The biggest flaw of the film is that all the characters are too strange and mysterious to identify with or empathize with. They appear as lawless libertine weirdos, whose motivations are opaque.

In Jissoji's previous film, one character's non-moral actions are set up against everyone else's traditional ethical values. However, in "Mandara", social norms don't even enter the frame: it's a world in which everyone is desperate and on edge, and explosive violence is welcomed. The ethical questions get pushed well past the point of reckoning -- how much sexual violence should the viewer have to endure witnessing? Can the viewer even begin to debate the film's positions, if the director makes an entry point so difficult?

There is a lot to admire in this film though, and I'm glad I didn't give up at the first scene of sexual assault. "Mandara" is a serious arthouse film, not a brainless "pink film". It contains real philosophical (and even theological) content. It's best to understand "Mandara" through lens of the political moment of 1971: in the aftermath of 1968s global student uprisings, radicals and progressives became pessimistic and bitter, and were willing to entertain the idea of burning down the system, since it seemed impossible to change it. The violent destruction of an insane world is a common theme of cinema of the era, as in Godard's "Weekend", "Themroc", "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". I'm no lover of amorality, but Jissoji deserves admiration for his dedication to his extreme vision.

"Mandara" is not an easy film to understand or enjoy...and yet, any true lover of cinema should see it, because visually it's quite amazing. Nearly every shot overwhelms with the beauty of its composition. There's a weird psychedelic quality to all the proceedings. Interiors are shot to exaggerate a scene's mood, as in Antonioni's films, and exteriors look like no other film. It's a pity "Mandara" would alienate most viewers, with its unappealing characters and extreme "beyond good and evil" ethics...because it's incredible to look at.

So...here's a film for deep cinephiles, leftist radicals, fans of sexual violence, decadent Shinto acolytes, or just extreme weirdos (like me). Everyone else should probably proceed with caution.