Edo Porn

I first noticed this film amongst the more popular Japanese films on Hulu, but I didn't pay much mind to it, cause I figured I could guess how it got there (being titled "Edo Porn" and all). But when I realized that this was a film by Kaneto Shindô (Onibaba, Kuroneko, The Naked Island), I couldn't pass up a chance to watch another one of his films.

This film is a portrait of the Japanese artist Hokusai, who I knew nothing about going in, but whom this film has piqued my interest in. He created the famous "Great Wave off Kanagawa". Apparently, he also created what could probably be considered the earliest example of tentacle porn. The sequence in the film where he draws that is... amazing.

This film starts off a generally well-made, albeit somewhat odd biopic of an eccentric man. In the last act however... I can understand the criticisms. There's a lot of Hokusai and his friend stumbling around - the actors in unconvincing 90-year-old man makeup doing their best half-crazy half-senile old man impressions. There's a lot of Hokusai talking to himself about death. Things get really strange, but I have to admit, that's kind of what I love about this film.

In a strange way, I think this is a good companion film to Kenji Mizoguchi's "Utamaro and His Five Women". That film is also about a famous Japanese woodblock printmaker of the same era, Utamaro, who is mentioned and briefly appears in "Edo Porn" as something of a rival of Hokusai. Made 35 years earlier, it's a completely different style of film, but, y'know, they're completely different styles of artists.

This starts very well indeed with interesting characters and situations and I wasn't at first aware that this was a bio pic on the life and work of Hokusai, he of the amorous octopus woodcut. Certainly the first half is very beautiful and engaging with it has also to be said lots of nudity as the artist sketches out his erotic pictures. The last half, unfortunately, at least to western eyes seems overly drawn out with the characters now made to look old in rather poor effects make up. It may be that we have different ideas about which features to accentuate to get an aged look but in any event it does not seem very realistic. Again it is perhaps an eastern preoccupation that so much time should now be devoted to regretting what has not been, looking forward to death etc. What I have not yet mentioned of course is the central scene where in fantasy and fact we see the beautiful nude and the octopus. Again, for me, not the greatest special effects but the scene certainly carries power with Hokusai's claim that he is painting not a woman being ravished but the hidden desires of women and is undeniably erotic. Well worth a watch and some gorgeous views of Mt Fuji to accompany the sequence dealing with his many interpretations of the elegant mountain.