domino harvey wrote:I'm not sure how sincere I take Oshima's death penalty criticisms to be, not that it matters too much to the quality of the film. This was probably the closest I've seen someone not directly adapting Kafka get to Kafka, though the homage is a bit on the nose (the central character is even referred to only by his initial). But after thirty minutes or so, I got the joke fifty times over, yet the film kept on at it before taking that odd turn halfway through and continuing ever forward/in place. Satire like this has to go for broke to even have a chance to work, and Oshima certainly goes all-in, but I just found this whole exercise too blunt and endless, and I don't think the film is nearly as clever as it thinks it is, which makes its slim insights less than revelatory.
I'm quoting this pretty exclusively for how I do and don't agree with your comments. At the same time it's to build a firewall since I was originally planning on using much stronger language against the Kafka comparison which I see as superficial and almost ignoring the major differences of this work compared with even
The Trial which is where I assume the comparisons come from. I remain unconvinced that Oshima even had read Kafka before this film, but would be equally unsurprised to hear the opposite. Before that though I want to say I strongly agree with you on how Oshima depicts the death penalty. It seems clear to me that any criticism is incidental and just an excuse to work through the real point of interest which is Japanese, particularly the government, relations with Koreans. The opening educational film set up with its stiff direction and leaden acting almost makes me think that Oshima is part of that 13% who don't care either way. He pretty quickly drops all criticism of the death penalty and what arguments he puts forth are spouted by a character he clearly doesn't like and is characterized as a superstitious ostrich. The lengthy opening seems like just another joke for Brechtian purposes.
Onto Kafka. Obviously there's a few similarities here (the initial, the persecution for a crime the protagonist doesn't understand himself to have done, the use of a minority experience for that lead), but with the possible exception of the first none of these similarities seem all that similar to me. Kafka's use of K strikes me mostly as a stylistic tick with no deeper meaning, but it actually does serve some narrative purpose here playing and then overplaying the death penalty angle. It is possible that Oshima is also using it to put off being explicit until necessary about his Korean origins, but that is probably reaching on my part. The next two similarities are fairly close in how they are pulled off differently, but in opposite ways. The key here strikes me in understanding how much more explicit Oshima is and where his point of view is. Kafka being K is fairly evident in his works and has been talked about by those better then me. Oshima though is not R and doesn't seem to relate to him at all. Not even at the film's end when he gives R that monologue. R is nothing more then a Korean. Instead Oshima seems primarily concerned with the persecutors identity. That's clear from a narrative point in just what we know. The antisemitism K fights is an unpronounceable thing that must only be left to an abstract haunting. Here we get detail after detail, reenactment after reenactment to where we know R is guilty and exactly of what and how. He's deserving of some sort of punishment because of that guilt, yet remains innocent due to being Korean. That's not a Kafka message at all where the guilt is due to being a member of the unlikable minority.
As for my feelings on the film I think it starts off okay, but Oshima really only brings this up to his standard when he goes for broke in the second hour, but he really only sustains that top line thrill for about forty minutes before the film starts to crater in exhaustion. It still manages to end on a significant note and there are good bits spread out in the last twenty minutes though. Even besides the main feature though this strikes me as a pretty essential release. Tony Rayns does his typical thing in a comprehensive 30 minutes talking head piece. Some of it is repetitive from other releases, but almost all of it is unique to this release, in terms of Rayns on disc pieces. In particular his comments on the film are very illuminating and provide some amazing context. The short is a fairly generic Chris Marker styled film painted with an equally generic leftist message. It's not bad, but doesn't accomplish more then feel like a brainstorm session on how to depict Koreans (which I think Oshima got better on as he went along). Still the historical context and how it supports the main feature makes this a particularly helpful extra which I'm glad was included.
