Goddamn; this was a surprise for sure. It was just minutes between coming across some snaps of this film and finding a copy on the handy Russian internet: a two days ago I gave it a try, and it blew me away. Its original title is 白痴 (1999), which has been kind of mercifully translated as "The Innocent", while having the most immediate connotation of "Idiot" or "Clueless". Hilariously enough, if you type the Japanese word, Google Images will give you some Trump shots in return. Anyway, after watching the movie, the only correct use of the world "Idiot" would be the old one, associated with mental illness or dissociation (since there's a prominent character sharing such feature). It is an adaptation, from a novel of the same title by Ango Sakaguchi [坂口 安吾] (1906-1955). The film is directed by Makoto Tezuka [手塚眞], none other than son of the manga and animation legend Osamu Tezuka [手塚治虫] ( 1928-1989); a highly unconventional and original author, Osamu was originally a certified doctor, who ended up pursuing a creative path closely linked to science fiction and dealing with prominent social and philosophical themes. After watching this film, I'd also argue these very impulses are very much alive in his own son as well.
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| The Media building looms at the end of the slums |
The scope and themes of the film are ambitious for the decade of the nineties; this is a science-fiction dystopian project, with surrealist features and the deep interiority expected from arthouse or "author" films. It depicts a war-torn futurist Japan, at permanent conflict with an unnamed nation which periodically destroys city after city to the ground, via terrifying incendiary air raids. The post-war imagery of burned-up cable poles, wooden blocks turned to ash and desperate people surviving among the ruins is of course reminiscent of post war Japan itself, after the American incendiary raids; but it also depicts scenes quite out of the creative atmosphere of the fifties and sixties, including of course Terayama-ish elements, and that of the underground theatre such as the Andersen-inspired Little Match Girl [マッチ売りの少女]. One can even see connections with the Kobe Hotel as the film centers around a cheap motel populated by sketchy characters. In this sense, I've read some reviews even describing the film as retro-futurist; the burned slums are reminiscent of Edo Japan, with geisha parlors and old-school trickster characters. However, there is an ominous building at the background of this city: the Media company. There, the ultra-rich and the media figures control the population via TV programming and musical releases, and their life is quite different from that of the outside. However, their hierarchy ruled by greed and power resembles both slavery and a fascist goverment, with gratuitous punishment and beatings directed to staff members: a ruthless corporativist society.
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| She reads "The World as Will and Representation"; makes perfect sense |
The "futuristic" atmosphere at the upper class is interesting, as it follows much of the imagery of silent film era science fiction. Much in the vein of Aelita: Queen of Mars [Аэли́та] (1924) or Metropolis (1927) a bunch of Art Deco elements are mixed with the Orientalist style typical of the early XX Century, to create an extremely alien aesthetic. While 白痴 in fact borrows a lot of these elements (such as waiters dressed as eunuchs), it also updates them by adding a bunch of 80's cyberpunk elements, from gear to color palettes. During a sequence depicting Ginga (a pop superstar, current face of the Media department) recording a music clip, there are even Burmese and Indian elements, at the heart of this aesthetic cocktail. However, the previously mentioned gratuite violence behind this workplace is also expression of a profound dissatisfaction and ennui at the heart of all people participating in this industry; an element we will revisit later. On the production department, aside from the eye-grabbing scenes and some experimental cuts, this is a quite carefully crafted film; the opening credits sequence include some beautiful stylized drawings, and there are a lot of interesting sets, and artistic choices. The OST remains classical and thus not that innovative; but composer Ichiko Hashimoto [橋本一子] made some gorgeous tracks for this one.
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| Kogarashi's introduction |
The film centers around the daily routine of Mr.Izawa, a slum inhabitant working as a low rank member of the Media company; his struggling to understand the war and to make sense of this society have turned him into a man who keeps to himself, and daily ponders whether to hang himself in the morning. He is one among the very few slum people getting to experience both worlds in all their disparities, and while he holds aspirations of becoming a writer/director himself, he no doubt relates more to the desperate and bizarre people of his own neighbourhood. These include prostitutes, thiefs, mad people and such other colorful bunch. On the third category, however, there are two important secondary characters: Kogarashi, and Sayo. Kogarashi apparently used to be heir of an important family, but his contempt for society led him to isolate himself in a ruinous house near Izawa's hotel. There he grew "strange" if not actually mad; there is a lot of Buddhist imagery and themes surrounding his character, almost as if he was endowed with the "mad wisdom" of Ikkyū [一休宗純] and other monks legendary on their disregard for social customs and authorities.
During one pilgrimage he adopted as wife a mute, self-absorved woman named Sayo, who now lives with him and their attendant. Sayo, incarnated by model Miyako Koda [甲田益也子] makes an absolutely amazing acting here, as the mysterious autistic neighbor of the slums; her austere simplicity, and her childlike expresivity will (ironically enough) become the only bastion of sanity for Izawa himself. Her almost disturbing aura gets enhanced by some daring camerawork by Tekuza, in almost horror cinema fashion. Of course, her character also involves long sequences in complete silence.
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| Sayo remains silent most of the film |
Her complete opposite is of course Ginga, the TV broadcasting star; capricious and openly cruel, everybody regards her as something near to God itself. And this opposition is based on the archetype of the Ego, or psychological Self; while Sayo remains "faceless" and "voiceless" (in terms of Kogarashi himself), Ginga represents the Individual, and the psychology of survival. There are many elements, visual (thrones, tattoos, crowns) as well as literary (Salome's dance, her reading Schopenhauer), that point towards this role of her character; however, this doesn't mean she's a plain, demonic character. Weidly enough, she's a somehow tragic and compelling character, and holds some of the film's best lines. Yet, her gratuitously cutting off Izawa's ear, or her sending her mobsters to brutalize him, really set the audience against her for a good part of the film. This theme of mindlessness against alienation reverberates throughout the whole film, and despite its artistic approach, it is a quite cyberpunk theme: the media as an entity devouring reality, as a "mental virus" in Burroughs's words, which can only be fought against by the deeply antisocial, the outcastes, those without access to the technologies of alienation itself. In 白痴's case, those completely detached from life and success, like Kogarashi.
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| Sayo's otherworldliness contrasts with Ginga's success |
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| Indeed |
Overall a fantastic piece between genre and arthouse, 白痴 has everything I can ask from a film; it remains a higly obscure piece with almost no exposure and this should be enmended with a new, remastered version. In time, I can totally see it becoming a cult piece, and it is incredibly actual and daring considering its date. Only downsides -for some viewers- are both its long running time and its taste for wild, oniric sequences serving as explorations on the characters' psyche. These can be somewhat strange (as an example, Iazawa writes a script depicting pretty much his own life, as if he was writing the film inside the film; then, the film happens to show the invented plot he submits, only to be revealed as a fantasy afterwards). Yet I find it a quite balanced experience, and overall an incredibly original effort. Its being an artsy post-apocalyptic movie is pretty much unique within the genre in Japan (as examples such as Burst City [爆裂都市] (1982) or Returner [リターナー] (2002) are action oriented), and I think it will hold dear to me for some time. Just hoping I will get a HD version one day, as the only available copy has Russian hardsubs. However, I'm grateful I could get one at all.
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