La Pendaison

This 1968 black and white film was made by the Japanese New Wave director Nagisa Oshima. It's a dark satire, often farcical in nature, which takes shots at such issues as the treatment of Koreans in Japan, capital punishment, bureaucracy and its bungling bureaucrats, and censorship, among other subjects.

A young Korean man, named R in the movie, has been sentenced to death by hanging by the Japanese courts for rape and murder. However, when he does not die after the attempted execution, it will set off a whole series of wild and farcical events, as the attending officials try and get the amnesiac R to remember who he is and admit to his guilt so they can attempt to execute him again,

Overall, lots of effective satirical barbs thrown by Oshima, but the film just got too drawn out, even tedious, as it progressed and became too dramatically overwrought as well.

I wasn't expecting it but after the first few minutes of what would seem to be an ordinary documentary the story falls in rapid succession into calamity, mystery, horror, absurdity and heaps upon heaps of surrealism and ultimately falling completely out of touch with reality. We're in new territory here. It's like Buñuel on steroids with a side order of TNT. The film wears you down as the characters flip flop through their machinations about how to deal with the after affects of a botched execution. Why don't they just shoot the guy in the head and get it over with? That would be a hell of a lot easier. I loved this movie, but I'll have to give my brain a few months to digest it before watching it again.

Pretty fantastic dark comedy/satire about the death penalty, the justice system, and relations between Japan and Korea post World War 2.

What starts as a quirky and amusing (yet still quite dark) film about what to do with a sentenced to death prisoner who apparently can't be killed gradually becomes more surreal, psychological, and more dramatic.

The progression is done well, and while there are scenes in the second half that can be overwhelming or confusing, at a point I certainly stopped taking things literally and tried to focus on the ideas and themes presented. (Arguably, with the initial premise of a man surviving being hanged, I should have stopped taking things literally almost straight away).

It has an accessible first half that does give way to a more disturbing and confounding second half, but it's a journey well worth taking if the premise sounds interesting to you.

Oshima is a director who usually leaves you in no doubt about what he thinks, but he goes all out here. This film is a strong polemic against the death penalty as practiced in Japan. The condemned man fails to die, and those in the death chamber panic and wonder what to do. After about five minutes of narration (by Oshima himself), the characters gear into action, using Oshima's chosen method : black farce. This is a very funny film, and all the more so because it confronts some very edgy stuff and often crosses the line to outrage. Oshima, as he often does, attacks Japan's sacred cows head on. As well as the death penalty, he deals with prejudice against Koreans, rape, politics, respect for authority and much more.

The acting is excellent, particularly the Korean who plays the condemned man. His calm poise provides an excellent balance to the mania of the officials around him, as they try to make him remember who he is and what he's done.

Strong stuff, warmly recommended.

This is one of the most complex and troubling films that I have seen lately. I know unfortunately too little about Nagisa Oshima, beyond his being the director of the famous Empire of Senses. Here he gives an amazingly strong film about the fate of one man identified by a one letter name (as in Kafka's Process) facing death by hanging but refusing to die, and losing his memory in the process. The whole bureaucratic system around works to get his memory back in order to make him pay for his crimes. They will re-enact his crimes starting to look crazier and bringing to surface their own demons and prejudices, plunging the hero redeemed innocent by amnesia and themselves in a complex world that mixes ceremony and nightmare. The film is a strong shout of protest against the death penalty, militarism and any repressive system that crashes human dignity.