 |
| From https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com /images/I/81MahA2gLZL._SY445_.jpg |
a.k.a. Onanie Sister Tagiru Nikutsubo
Director: Hideo Sakaki
Screenplay: Kôichi Miwa
Cast: Ui Mita as Akane Kanzaki;
Shô Nishino as Kayoko Fukuya; Yasuyo Shiba as Rina Sendô; Shigeru Harihara as
Kanzaburô Yamanami; Yûta Kogiri as Shinji Okada; Tadashi Mizuno as Kensuke
Saitô; Matarô Umeya as Shigeyuki Kimura; Ayumi Tomiyama as Junko Machioka;
Kôichi Miwa as Tejima
Obscurities, Oddities and One-Offs
I know what you're thinking reader - why am I re-reviewing a film just
covered a month ago which I didn't like particularly? Simply put, I can write
better. Also, there's something more meaningful in returning to a film with
hindsight of what already happens in the plot, with the context of what it is,
and review it again without discrimination. In fact, contrasting it with the
previous review I will link HERE will provide a surprising contrast.
[Spoilers Throughout]
The history of pinku cinema from
Japan, as Jasper Sharp has written about in his book Behind The Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema,
attests to its virtues. Designed for pure titillation, it however had the
advantage that, made on a low budget and creative control being possible, a
filmmaker like Kōji Wakamatsu could
make the most striking and transgressive films as long as they still qualified
as erotica. There are many films made afterwards, such as from the likes of Takashi Zeze, that can attest to the
fact you could make cerebral and adult dramas from them, even erotic musicals
as Shinji Imaoka can attest to with Underwater Love (2011). There is, however,
as much of the cinema which is still titillation and titillation alone, so it
varies in quality. OP Eiga, behind
the production of Naked Desire, is
one of the oldest pinku companies and arguably the producers of the first, Satoru Kobayashi's Flesh Market (1962), so after all these decades they've both a huge
historical importance and have made a
lot...
Certainly from a premise
perspective is fascinating - a pinku that explicitly references the issue of
Japan's rising elderly population, the malign yet increasing aging populous depicted
in the disabled Sabu, a former political protestor who is being taken care of
by Sister Akane (Ui Mita), a literal
Christian nun who means that the premise will also involve dealing with
Christianity, a small but significant religious minority in Japanese culture,
and the issues of said faith against one's sexual desires. Also aesthetically,
the fact it's very low budget to the point they a) have to visibly blur out a
car license plate and b) blur out cup noodle, with onscreen digital effect, is
actually appealing for me in how the lowest budgeted of cinema, far from being
detracted from in terms of technical hurdles to climb over, offers a vaster
wealth of potential imagination due to these limitations.
I confess a growing fascination
for the raw flaws of this type of work in general. Even if the DVD transfer
from the DVD I viewed, a 2019 Redemption
Films release even on an old TV and old Blu-Ray, is probably one of the
worst I have seen, many might be put off by the frankly gristly depiction of
sex. Here is a world where a classroom is apparently a set in a roofless shack
with a picture of an egg and sperm on a white board and an (uncensored) Adidas football
inexplicably near where the sex between school teacher Rina (Yusuyo Shiba) and her student lover
Shinji (Yuta Kogiri) takes
place, where even for them, when they
flee to the coast with the police after them as he's the dean's son, they first
seen sleeping in her car until luck shows they're outside Sabu's house.
An ultra-love budget sex drama
set in one main house at the coast could've led to so much interesting
creativity, especially as the house is distinctly elaborate and the coastal
setting is invocative in its isolation, from the vast plains of browned wild grass
to the elaborate stone sea barrier Sabu is found wandering upon later, but I
also perversely find as a charm in the grimy, realistic banality as well. Where
the female police officer, having an intimate moment by herself watching porn
in the office, visibly has a hole in the toe of one of the black socks she is
still wearing, or even the perversity of Kayoko (Shou Nishino), a self-proclaimed nymphomaniac free spirit who ends
up in the life of Sister Akane and, wanting to bring (sexual) pleasure to
Sabu's life, will even consider doing so whilst first helping him on the
toilet.
There are obviously two
transgressive topics here, that Rina and Shinji are a teacher and her male
student which raises a lot of potentially controversy. There's also the fact,
as Sabu is through most the film a decrepit old man in his own world, that Kayoko's
desire to sexually pleasure him crosses a line of consent that also Sister Akane
raises; Kayoko's philosophy, openly speaking of previous examples as a former
carer, that a person regardless of age should be allowed to be human and have
sensual pleasure, the film potently attempting to tackle this in mind of
Japan's growing elder population, does even in a less than intellectual form
raise questions about standards of life for a person incredibly incapacitated
by illness/age even if the result would obviously be uncomfortable for many
viewers. If Naked Desire had been
openly transgressive with a purpose, it would've at least been interest even if
still uncomfortable. Even if it had been a comedy, it could've done a John Waters and deliberately been bad
taste. The issue is that, for its good moments, Naked Desire by its ending falls on an empty conclusion which makes
these two plot points, and Akane's existential issues, more trivial.
On another viewing, I like that a lot of the film is a quiet work, literally as there's minimal music on the soundtrack and, barring a porn music bass line that'd be an embarrassment to its ancestors, it's used sparingly. It's a slow burn light hearted drama which has a lot of obviously problematic content to try to juggle, but slowly builds towards what you hope is an ending that deals with all this, at least being compelling and of interest. This is especially the case as the three main woman are the strong central figures who have most of the scenes, the two male figures Sabu, who is a disabled figure, and Shinji the side character whose trajectory is realising he has a fetish for the buttock, not only Rina's but his own being touched which turns into a surprising progressive end reveal.
This isn't concluded upon. In mind,
as well, the British DVD removes what is apparently a rape scene, which is an
uncomfortable thought even if the film's trying to be a lot more complex and on
the side of the female cast, there are aspects that just shoot the film's best
virtues in the foot. Say in contrast to Ui
Mita actually playing her nun character with a charmingly innocent chastity
and yearning to do good, even if there' something odd about her suddenly
undoing her hair and masturbating in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary, you
have the two male cops, who are absolutely unbearable. Even without the
tasteless joke of the pair constantly groping their female side kick, they're
played as broadly and sex obsessed as possible, like two obnoxious teenagers whose
gurning is embarrassing; one scene, shot in a city centre, where they are
lulled by two female sex workers is painful in how broad the duo are. In contrast,
you immediately have sympathy for their meek, thin faced female fellow officer,
who puts up with them and at least can have a scene of beating up a pervert and
the bizarre moment, with the same actress, when she realises a woman in a porn
video she is watching looks exactly like herself.
All of this may put off certain
readers anyway, a stigma attached to many erotica that it's crass and really
gauche. Some of the descriptions of what transpires may have put you the reader
off already, and knowledge of what was excised, probably in relation to Kayoko's
introductory scene of gladly having sex with two men in a countryside ditch
only for her comments that they're practically useless in bed not going down
well, doesn't help with the image I have painted of Naked Desire even if the film itself is much more interesting than
the synopsis. Naked Desire isn't
terrible but you'd feel embarrassed to recommend it, mainly because it never
resolves its complex themes at all or hit its fullest potential. Any genre,
type and form of cinema and motion images should be defended, all capable of
great work, all capable of at least entertainment too. Pinku cinema is the same
as, when intelligent and risk taking, it is, when fun and titillating, it is,
and in the case of The Glamorous Life of
Sachiko Hanai (2003), which
became an unexpected cult hit in the West for its many aspects including
then-president George Dubya Bush's
finger being an unexpected plot point, even hitting a cultural zeitgeist. But
it can also miss the mark, as seen in Naked
Desire, even if the ending tries its hardest.
It's impossible to forget. The
old man, awoken by the police outside his home triggering his memories of being
a protestor, suddenly turns into Yukio
Mishima during his fatale attempt at a coup d'état in 1970, becoming alive
again when the two male police men's arsing about with a megaphone stir up his
youthful strength. (The film even references the 1960 Treaty of Mutual
Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan that caused
incredible outcry and political demonstrations as part of Sabu's back story,
which should've been ran with further). In probably the most unexpected scene,
the youngest cop and Shinji decide to
have sex, in probably the most progressive moment of the whole film as, rather
than for comedy, it's seen as two guys regardless of sexuality finding
themselves enjoying jumping each other on the kitchen floor, Shinji further
finding a higher state of pleasure in his anus, having included a scene earlier
of him asking for his to be licked scored to what appeared to be baroque music,
and the younger cop finally after all his desperation to get laid getting his
wish too. And the main female cast take an actual risk as, on even a very slow
moving car, Shou Nishino and Yusuyo Shiba posed naked hanging out the
open passenger doors and Ui Mita posing
naked in the open car boot, still impressive in allowing themselves to be in
such a position on a moving vehicle (and probably freezing as it doesn't look
like the scene was filmed on a hot day). It still doesn't completely work mind.
That female trio literally become posed models, improvised "artillery"
in a sex display in front of open windows, which completely undercuts the fact
that they were the strongest and most in control figures of the entire movie
and comes off with a demeaning end with Sabu barking orders at them as
subservient when there's an obvious, more liberating conclusion where
everyone's in control the cops (baring one) are left the losers and sans
working car.
Altogether, Naked Desire is slight. A curiosity, completely so, but a reminder
(again to Jasper Sharp's tone) that
considering how many films are released in the pinku genre still to this day, consistency
is variable. This is pertinent as, early in their DVD releases, Redemption Films were releasing some
fascinating titles. Films like Tokyo X
Erotica (1999) are very idiosyncratic, but it seems that sadly, barring a
few fascinating choices I want to visit, Redemption
Film's choices have sadly slid into sex films which don't live up to their
potential, an utter shame as the British company for a long time (before they
focused as much on the US market) did a lot of admirable things, such as their Jean Rollin releases to even debuting Valarie and Her Weekend of Wonders (1970) on
DVD in the UK, all in spite of their utterly cheesy Satanic lesbian vampire
aesthetic. Naked Desire is more than
the sum of its pink DVD cover hidden in the World Cinema DVD section of HMV
here in England, and in honestly I have developed a fascination for it as a
result of reviewing it twice, but even for titillation, it still the kind of
film lost in memory due to some very obvious flaws.
No comments:
Post a Comment