CKB
In a 1972 interview, Masaki Kobayashi (director of the Human Condition, Harakiri, Kwaidan, and Samurai Rebellion) stated that he considered director Nagisa Ôshima to be "a political figure rather than an artist, a filmmaker." Sing a Song of Sex (aka A Treatise on Japanese Bawdy Songs) could be exhibit A for this argument, since it functions much more like a boring harangue by a long-winded intellectual than a worthwhile film experience. Ôshima felt sympathy for Koreans, who had suffered terribly under Japan's harsh occupation and were still nastily looked down upon by the Japanese, and decided to make a political allegory about this injustice. To this end he drags us along with four nihilistic Beavis and Butthead style high school boys, on break after taking their college entrance exams, as they wander about lamely lusting after girls. They seem to represent the disengaged youth of mid-1960s Japan, who don't care much about anything. They get treated to dinner at a restaurant, along with three girl students, by their former teacher, who has done extensive ethnographic research and considers bawdy folk songs to be a basic outlet for the frustrated feelings of oppressed people. He drunkenly sings one with a seemingly endless set of dorky verses, which becomes repeated ad nauseam through the rest of the film. Later that night, one of the students, Nakamura, goes to the teacher's apartment and discovers him unconscious and the room filled with gas fumes leaking from a heater. Instead of saving him, Nakamura leans over him to sing the sex song, then leaves. The man is found dead the next morning. From this point on, Nakamura's guilt is an issue that cannot seem to get resolved, apparently representing Japan's unacknowledged guilt for its abuse of Koreans. One of the girl students, who is Korean, has her own prostitute's folk song to share with the boys, apparently in reference to the Korean ‘comfort women' forced to pleasure Japanese occupation troops, or, more broadly, Korea's relationship with Japan during the occupation years. This song also becomes a repeated refrain. Things continue to drag on like this until the film (thankfully) stops. Ôshima insisted on making each of his films in a different style that presumably fit its story/subject. This one is improvisatory, but such a style hardly fits a political allegory, and its characters are so empty and alienated that there is no emotional center to hold things together as the less-than-brilliant actors aimlessly make up everything on the fly. Ôshima started out as a political activist, and maybe should have stuck to that, just as Kobayashi thought.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
03/16/23
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Audience Member
One of the best movies ever made.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/21/23
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Audience Member
I think I like 'A Treatise on Japanese Bawdy Songs' as a title better. Just think if Hollywood would use such titles: Super 8 would be - A Treatise on the Modern Hollywood Blockbuster or 300 - A Treatise on Homoerotic Violence. Maybe insert the phrase 'A Frank Discussion' sometimes. It just rolls off the tongue.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/18/23
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Audience Member
Abysmal!! Nagisa Oshima's worst film surely. Although there are one or two mesmerising moments: the rest is utter tosh and a real disappointment. It's hard to believe that this is a film by the same guy who directed In the realms of the senses and Merry Xmas Mr Lawrence. Best moment is a surreal scene in a lecture hall with students watching a pair engage in coitus in full public view though the film does not show much nudity. A drunk professor singing strange songs is quite amusing but avoid this one like the plague.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
01/26/23
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Audience Member
Pretty fascinating movie. A lot of the protest stuff was lost on me (I don't know much about Japanese politics of the 1960's) but the themes of adolescent rage, lust, confusion, and envy really resonated with me. This is one I'll have to watch again to try and fully understand. Very surreal, and apparently mostly improvised. Oshima is an interesting and inspiring director that I'm really enjoying working through the filmography of. For those who don't know, he was the first Japanese filmmaker to break from the traditional studio system and create an independent film studio.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/19/23
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Audience Member
Um, ok. I don't really get the symbolism behind this one. It seems like a product of the 60s youth culture (in Japan), but beyond that I'm pretty much lost here. This is bizarre and mostly disturbing in nature. Not for everyone, and probably not really for anyone. I was mostly bored during this whole film.
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
01/21/23
Full Review
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