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IMDbPro

Profound Desires of the Gods

Original title: Kamigami no fukaki yokubô
  • 1968
  • Not Rated
  • 2h 53m
IMDb RATING
7.5/10
2.1K
YOUR RATING
Profound Desires of the Gods (1968)
EpicPsychological DramaTragedyDrama

An engineer from Tokyo arrives on a drought-ridden tropical island to drill a well to power a nearby sugar mill. He meets the inbred Futori family, hated by the locals for breaking religious... Read allAn engineer from Tokyo arrives on a drought-ridden tropical island to drill a well to power a nearby sugar mill. He meets the inbred Futori family, hated by the locals for breaking religious customs.An engineer from Tokyo arrives on a drought-ridden tropical island to drill a well to power a nearby sugar mill. He meets the inbred Futori family, hated by the locals for breaking religious customs.

  • Director
    • Shôhei Imamura
  • Writers
    • Keiji Hasebe
    • Shôhei Imamura
  • Stars
    • Rentarô Mikuni
    • Chôichirô Kawarasaki
    • Hideko Okiyama
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    7.5/10
    2.1K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Shôhei Imamura
    • Writers
      • Keiji Hasebe
      • Shôhei Imamura
    • Stars
      • Rentarô Mikuni
      • Chôichirô Kawarasaki
      • Hideko Okiyama
    • 8User reviews
    • 22Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 5 wins & 1 nomination total

    Photos12

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    Top cast18

    Edit
    Rentarô Mikuni
    Rentarô Mikuni
    • Nekichi Futori…
    Chôichirô Kawarasaki
    • Kametaro Futori…
    Hideko Okiyama
    • Toriko Futori…
    Kanjûrô Arashi
    Kanjûrô Arashi
    • Yamamori Futor…
    Yasuko Matsui
    • Uma Futori…
    Yoshi Katô
    Yoshi Katô
    • Ritsugen Ryu
    Izumi Hara
    • Unari Ryu
    Jun Hamamura
    Jun Hamamura
    Kazuo Kitamura
    • Kariya…
    Tatsu Nakamura
    Susumu Mizushima
    Hôsei Komatsu
    Chikako Hosokawa
    Chikako Hosokawa
    Yasuhiko Ishizu
    Kazuhiko Hasegawa
    Taiji Tonoyama
    Taiji Tonoyama
    Chikage Ôgi
    Kiyoshi Tokugawa
    • Director
      • Shôhei Imamura
    • Writers
      • Keiji Hasebe
      • Shôhei Imamura
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews8

    7.52K
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    Featured reviews

    10george_a_romero

    deftly captures the alchemy of the natural world.

    Trying to acknowledge the enigma of Japanese Cinema, outside the paddock of Akira Kurosawa (Seven Samurai) and Yasujiro Ozu (Tokyo Story), is a daunting yet arousing act. With Profound Desires of the Gods (1968), Shõhei Imamura redefined the rigorous notions of 'Japaneseness'. Because the Futori family retain the traditional belief that their island of Kurage was created through the sexual union of a brother god and sister goddess, the other more progressive islanders vilify them. When a Tokyo engineer arrives to supervise the creation of a new well, he unearths the mystifying extremism of the Noro (shaman). With Profound Desires, Imamura examines the dogma of Japanese mythology and investigates the disparaging effect of modernity and the ruinous consequence of Coca-Cola. It is a sizzling masterwork filled with Buñuelian surrealism, which deftly captures the alchemy of the natural world.
    7GiraffeDoor

    A unique and strangely eerie experience.

    A very candid and often uncomfortable examination of traditional cultures and their survival into modernity.

    This movie has a rich and distinctive rhythm, immersing itself in the natural world. Sometimes sort of funny in a messed up way, it also has a very dark core.

    I especially liked the humdrum little clerk finding a new part of himself in his relationship with the mentally disabled girl. I don't know if it's an insensitive portrayal but it adds to the movie's rawness.

    I've never seen a movie quite like it even if I ultimately watched it in two sittings.
    5jordondave-28085

    For goers who do not mind dysfuntion

    (1968) The Profound Desire of the Gods/ Kamigami no fukaki yokubô (In Japanese with English subtitles) PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA

    Director Shohei Imamura personal project film involving an uninhabited somewhat tropical island and it's prehistoric islanders come to fruition once an engineer (Kazuo Kitamura) from Tokyo city attempts to make plans regarding the island as a whole, and transitioning it into a sugar cane factory. Meeting first is the eldest,Yamamori, (Kanjûrô Arashi), appointed as the engineer's protege, is the son, Kametaro (Chôichirô Kawarasaki), appointed priestess of Noro Uma Futori (Yasuko Matsui), an sexually repressed inbred, Turiko (Hideko Okiyama) and the oldest always chained son, Nekichi (Rentarô Mikuni) violated many superstitious rules regarding the islands customs and traditions.
    10birthdaynoodle

    The dual nature of man

    A pantheistic society on a remote island in the Pacific find themselves in desperate need of fresh water. They invite Tokyo engineer Kariya to find the best sources of water in the area in order to pump it. As the story begins to unfold, Imamura lays out contrasting aspects of human nature by comparing Kariya's rational, scientific thought and the islanders' intuitive, spiritual vision of the world. (According to something said in one of the DVD's extra features, the island in the story was inspired by Okinawa, whose culture at the time still preserved some aboriginal characteristics and was different from most of Japan.)

    Things begin to get more interesting when, to his utmost surprise, engineer Kariya is faced with some very primal needs of his own. At the same time, some of the island residents seem ready to put behind their adoration of the gods (sometimes dismissed as 'superstition') in order to concentrate on more practical matters. Others, like the Futori - an incestuous family regarded as beastly even by their neighbors' standards - prove to be particularly resistant to change.

    I believe the Japanese director is addressing some of psychiatrist Carl Jung's ideas regarding the unconscious and man's innate need for myth. In his book, 'Man and His Symbols', Jung explains that in prehistoric times, man used to be completely intuitive and animalistic. Through a process of thousands of years, we've become more civilized and scientifically advanced. Yet, the primitive, emotional, non-rational aspect remains perfectly alive in our unconscious and cannot be fully tamed. This interior wilderness manifests itself in different ways, sometimes to our embarrassment, despite our best efforts to control it (a recurring theme in Imamura's films). Because our very existence and such a substantial part of who we are remain such a mystery to us, we use myth and a variety of symbols in an attempt to deal with these powerful, often puzzling, numinous forces within and without.

    On a historical note, Imamura was allowed to work with a relatively large budget, but the film proved perhaps too strange and intellectual to please large crowds. This resulted in financial losses and the director vowed to never work with a large studio again.

    Surreal and comical (although not outrageously so, like Imamura's last feature film, 'Warm Bridge Under the Red Bridge') 'Profound Desires of the Gods' leaves you with what could be described as a strong sense of psychic intensity.
    5LunarPoise

    meandering, centreless piece with hints of genius

    Profound Desires of the Gods, sometimes referred to as Imamura's overlooked epic, is an ambitious undertaking. Running at a daunting 173 minutes, it is ostensibly the tale of one inbred Ryukyu family's (the Futoris) attempts to regain lost social status. They do this by digging a pit to bury a huge boulder, and by seducing a mainland engineer with the feral, sexually-charged wild-child daughter. On another level, the film interrogates issues of modernity versus tradition, religious hypocrisy, and Japan's troubled relations with the outside world.

    The film's successes are its luscious landscape, evocative production design of heathen and pagan rituals and artifacts, and portrayal of suppressed, taboo desires bursting to the fore. The narrative wanders and explores various tangents that can challenge the attention. This is filmmaking for cinema, and the gorgeous golden beaches and turquoise oceans had me longing to see this on the big screen. A murder by masked men at the end is also visually compelling. This film is interesting in bits, and flashes of genius occasionally show themselves, but the lack of coherence, repetition in the storyline, and outright dud moments (the heavenly vision of the departed patriarch), make this a problematic addition to the Imamura oeuvre. It hints at the great film that this project could have become, a realization of the potential of the vision, rather than the vision itself. Sometimes amazing, sometimes disappointing, this is one to watch and argue over.

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    Related interests

    Orson Welles in Citizen Kane (1941)
    Epic
    Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
    Psychological Drama
    Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams in Manchester by the Sea (2016)
    Tragedy
    Mahershala Ali and Alex R. Hibbert in Moonlight (2016)
    Drama

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Official submission of Japan for the 'Best Foreign Language Film' category of the 42nd Academy Awards in 1970.
    • Quotes

      Yamamori Futor: He shouldn't take money. The engineer is a god who came from beyond the sea. It will not do to take money for serving that god.

    • Connections
      Featured in Cinéma, de notre temps: Shohei Imamura, le libre penseur (1995)

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    FAQ15

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • July 22, 1970 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • Japan
    • Language
      • Japanese
    • Also known as
      • Kuragejima
    • Filming locations
      • Ishigaki-jima, Ryukyu Islands, Japan(Spelling error)
    • Production company
      • Nikkatsu
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 2h 53m(173 min)
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Mono
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.35 : 1

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