The Sun's Burial

Japanese director Nagisa Oshima's cinema can be divided into two distinctly unique periods; both of which were seen before and after his classics of erotic cinema genre 'In the realm of the senses' and 'Empire of passion'. Japanese film 'The Sun's Burial' belongs to his early period, a time of discovery of Japanese society especially its riffraff. Like his contemporary colleague cineaste Shohei Imamura, Oshima chooses to remain neutral in order to depict the meanness of his characters. Neither men nor women have been spared as all their crimes as well as weaknesses have been portrayed with utmost honesty. All of them have been shown as they have always been. Much of this film's strength comes in the form of depiction of a criminal world in Osaka where it is 'each man for himself'. It is a world in which innocence has either been lost or has absolutely no meaning for criminals. It is in the midst of a harsh climate of deception that the sun disappears for criminal elements in Osaka,Japan. The name of director Nagisa Oshima invariably springs to mind each time a discussion about Japanese cinema is carried out. For this reason only,he continues to be as much a revered figure as other masters from Japan such as Kurosawa, Mizoguchi and Ozu.

Nagisa Ôshima's third movie is about a slum in Osaka, where the young people all live by prostitution, theft, and selling their own blood. This goes on for a long time, while Kayoko Honoo's face grows shinier and shinier from sweat, and blacker from grime, because apparently there's no water, until there's a riot destroying the crooks at the top, whereupon she walks out of the slum.

This is, by Ôshima's standards, a happy ending, but it does raise the question of why she couldn't have left earlier. The answer I imagine is that Ôshima felt a need to organize the lumpenproletariat to destroy their essentially bourgeouis, vampiric masters, before she could abandon them to their own fate. What they're going to do is not clear to me. There are still no jobs. What Miss Honoo is going to do is also unclear to me. Her skill set seems to consist of whoring, selling her blood, and incitement to riot.

I suppose it's symbolic. Having cleaned up the Osaka slum, she is now going to clean up the rest of Japan and possibly the world. Film, however, is a very literal medium, and therefore I am more concerned with the rather lackadaisical manner in which people riot, particularly the big guy with the wooden pole.

None of which has anything to do with the movie's impact in 1960, when it was novel, shocking and had something to say that needed to be said. Nowadays, after more than half a century of increasing violence on the screen, it lacks snap.

This movie manages to undo every romantic notion of poverty and life in the slums anyone might have. The characters here are not noble, or unfortunate and they are not victims. They are simply all cruel animals clawing on each other to get to the top of the jar. Every character's face is continually covered with sweat and if they are not afflicted with some deformity you can usually see the bones under their meager flesh. There is little distinction of charcters in the film. It is like an entymologists film of an ant-colony. Oshima's best film in my opinion, it doesn't suffer from the misogyny of "Cruel Story of Youth." or the try hard porno universe of "In the Realm of the Senses". These things are combined with a brutal realism that makes this film the most surreal and shocking, but without trying to be.

Haunting, melodic, melancholic, poetic... many more praising adjectives suit this movie. It marks the birth of Japanese modern cinema. Oshima brilliantly continues the masters Mizoguchi and Ozu, while at the same time marking a big turn in style and themes.

The movie is modern in both: style and themes. I dare saying that this style marked many great contemporary directors (as different as Tarantino, Jia Zhang-KE or Michael Mann). It has, for instance, a questioning and a renewal of the dramatic content that a scene can exhibit. Another novelty in Oshima's style is the manner in which he treats social themes: a mixture of documentary-style and fiction-style, greatly developed later by Jia Zhang Ke, and having an affiliation with the French nouvelle vague (the time overlap is no coincidence).

As for the themes: even if Mizoguchi was already interested in social problems and their reflection upon the individual, he was never so pessimistic as Oshima. Watch the movie and you'll see what I mean. But, in spite of a much more cruel view upon society, Oshima has the same deep message as Mizoguchi: the beauty. You can see it in every scene. Look carefully: there is much light in this dark movie!

This sometimes brutal look at post war Osaka seems like a companion piece to Oshima's "Naked Youth". Seemingly aimless young people engage in criminal gang behavior, generally causing mayhem. You have to immediate give credit to Oshima for being unflinching in this story. This is not a story where you'll even like any character, least of all Hanoko, who has pretty but also pretty dead black eyes. In her eyes you see the futile existence in living there and leading the lifestyle they lead. The film's title appears to be a political one, as if Japan will be no more. The film's message is now dated, but its an effective film nonetheless. Oshima didn't compromise in his work, sometimes for better or for worse, but he is unique. If you're looking for redemption, its not really here. watch it for its portrait of gang life in a Japan rarely shown at any time to the general public. Its violent but worth your time.