Saw Oshima's "Gohatto" ("Taboo") this morning.
Quite striking dramatically, and incredibly lovely visually.
Set at the end of the Samurai era, it concerns an elite unit where an incredibly beautiful recuit joins and by his very presence alone drives his fellow-samurais wild with desire. (So much for Gays in the Military!)
One of them formally declares his attraction for the dreamboat. But instead of the expected blossoming for a love affair, the beloved steers clear of the rejected suitor and instead takes up with a much less attractive older samurai who he holds in thrall.
The entire samurai tradition, competent historians have noted, is held together by same-sexuality. It was neither "celebrated" nor derided. Just accepted as part of the way things are. Oshima's story, however, deals with same-sex passion as potentially destructive. Moreover, it's told from the standpoint of a samurai not directly involved with the leading participants. Played by Beat Takeshi, he's something on the order of a detective in a police procedural. The thing is, he's examining the situation before a crime has been committed. He wants to find out why people are behaving the way theydo. And he wants to do so in a way that's particularly Japanese -- eschewing psychology as it's normally dealt with in the West.
The crux of the mystery is Just What Is It with this hunk-a-hunk-a-burnin' Samurai, anyway? Why does he reject someone who loves him directly for someone who wants im more furtively? And why does he prefer the older man to the younger, farmore suitable one? A clue is in the fact that he declares that the reason he wanted to become a samurai was in order to kill. And he does dispatch several people for one reason or another in the course of the action. Yet he remains as mysterious and elusive as Gene Tierney in "Leave Her To Heaven."
It all reaches aclimax in the last shot, in which Takeshi, in one swift move, cuts down a tree. Why does he do it? Because it's beautiful.
And beauty is dangerous.
Not really a film about same-sexuality so much as a study of the trouble wrought by beauty. Think "Laura" and/or "Gilda."
But with guys.
Oshima,BTW, directed this entire film from a wheelchair. He has suffered a series of strokes in recent years that has greatly debilitated him. it's the reason why this is his first film since "Max Mon Amour" in 1986. He was planning to make a film about Rudolph Valentino and Sessue Hayakawa. But that went south some years back when his health went south. I'm told he's almost fully recovered now. He's in his 70's, I believe.
