Nagisa Oshima: Race, Identity, Crime, Punishment, Guilt, Innocence & Gallows Humor
(Japan, 1968)
Japan's galvanizing film theorist and all-around enfant terrible of cinema directed Koshikei, internationally known as Death By Hanging in 1968. This would be the second film in a dramatic comeback and creative upswing that also included Diary Of A Shinjuku Thief, The Man Who Left His Will On Film, Ceremony and Boy, and climaxed with the legendary and controversial In The Realm Of The Senses (Ai No Corrida) in 1976.
Oshima was initially trained as a lawyer, and upon finishing law school, he drifted into radical left activism, initially connected to the anti-nuclear protests that erupted in Japan in the early 1950s. Later in the decade, he managed to find entry level work for Shochiku studios, and in spite of his regular claims of utter disinterest in cinema, he began moonlighting as a film critic and quickly gained a reputation for deconstructive and socially relevant readings of contemporary film. By 1959, not yet 30 years of age, he was already directing.
His initial offerings were lumped into a 'Japanese new wave' - a description dreamed up by studios as a marketing term; in the face of sinking ticket sales, studios were hoping to co-opt and cash in on the then-developing French new wave. Oshima, however, seemed to take the idea to heart - in spirit, he was an analytical provocateur in the fashion of Godard, and he quickly set about crafting similarly rigorous and inventive films: Town Of Love And Hate, Cruel Story Of Youth, The Burial Of The Sun, and Night And Fog In Japan all appeared within 2 years, and featured the same kinds of wild stylistic and structural experiments (and previously unmentionable kinds of social criticism) seen in the finest of the new European films.
Studio response to the inflammatory Night And Fog In Japan had a disruptive effect upon Oshima's career - ejected from the studio system, he continued to work, but his films became less certain in their messages and ideas, and he operated at a greatly diminished profile. The outwardly unfocused films he made during this period can, nonetheless, be read as test runs for the spectacular creations he would offer later in the decade.
Beginning with the dizzying Violence At Noon (in 1966), Oshima embarked upon a dramatic comeback. His films had intuitively evolved into complex discursive dramas, laden with overlapping themes which often upset the traditional verities of a newly-affluent society, but were striking in their inventive and unexpected eloquence. A great many filmmakers have been willing to extract mesmerizing drama from socially difficult ideas, but - in the hands of Oshima, this conceit was increasingly held together by an organization of thought that was airtight, challenging and wildly original. And fresh from the striking resurgence seen in that film, Oshima expanded his palette, with Death By Hanging taking on issues - that, while superficially rooted in Japanese specifics - engage aggressively with controversial issues of global relevance.
Death By Hanging begins and ends as a faux-documentary, opening in an execution chamber; we are to view the hanging of a condemned man (introduced as "'R' - A Korean"), after his conviction for a rape and murder. The attempted execution goes awry; R survives unscathed, but for one aftereffect: he's been rendered amnesiac, obliterating both his memory, and his sense of identity. The film begins a slow spiral away from faux-reality, into something far less categorizable (Brecht and Kafka both surface as comparisons in many published assessments of this film): as identity, and classical definitions of guilt, innocence, crime and punishment all begin to splinter, the film shifts into a wildly stylized mix of philosophy, social observation, avant theatrics
and ruthless comedy. If the mind of a guilty man is wiped clean, and he's left with no concept of his own guilt (whether acknowledged or contested), is he guilty? Would the execution of such a man remain punitive, or would it become state-sponsored murder? In such a scenario, what ethical constructs would absolve jailers of guilt in the murder of a murderer (who may not be a murderer - this is left unresolved) who isn't aware of his status, role or identity?
and ruthless comedy. If the mind of a guilty man is wiped clean, and he's left with no concept of his own guilt (whether acknowledged or contested), is he guilty? Would the execution of such a man remain punitive, or would it become state-sponsored murder? In such a scenario, what ethical constructs would absolve jailers of guilt in the murder of a murderer (who may not be a murderer - this is left unresolved) who isn't aware of his status, role or identity?Rather than play this as didactic melodrama, Oshima opts for a riskier tactic - as the film slowly, systematically moves towards elaborate anti-realism, the film also gradually becomes far funnier - a ruthless, deadly humor in which the punch lines are built upon social conventions which are widely accepted in an unquestioning fashion, for the questioning of them would swiftly lead to great moral discomfort. R's captors set about a course of attempting to jog his memory through a theatricalized, imaginative impromptu re-creation of the crimes for which he was convicted. This rough and raw performance fails to achieve the intended effect, and in response, the prison guards resort to ever-more surreal extremes in performance, with the 'guilty' man viewing, as something of a makeshift theater critic and voyeur, as the performance slowly morphs into something more avant-garde, ever more sexually and racially shattering.
As R's awareness of his own criminality has vanished, so has his ethnic or racial status as a member of a minority (Korean) group which has historically been segregated, allotted the most lowly employment, or has otherwise been discriminated against. The film's humor first erupts into the open as prison guards attempt a fumbling explanation (to a genuinely befuddled man) of his minority - and therefore inherently racially inferior status (and the relative disposability to society inherent in such a status). R's response is utter incomprehension, which in a tour-de-force moment of performance, arrives with both the kick of the most trenchant of post-civil-rights critiques of social relations, and the timing of truly stunning comedy. This devastating moment questions - as noted by critic Maureen Turin (the idea of mutable aspects of identity also figures prominently in some of the writings of Jacques Derrida) - and challenges the notion of a fixed identity - and, thus, any possible rationale for societal bigotry, and sets the tone for much that follows.
From here on, the re-enactment sinks into film-within-a-film, and film-within-that-film, in a brilliant, chambered structure that shifts - through very tightly constructed discourse and theatrics that modulate between these many overlapping themes into an engaging, architectural labyrinth of subverted logic and heightened drama. The death chamber suddenly transforms into an (imagined) childhood home, and the theatrics peak with R observing as his captors attempt to imagine, and then improvise, the social rigors of his childhood; it is assumed that - as a despised minority - he must, by default, have experienced a torment-filled childhood. Simulations of alcoholism, domestic violence and child
neglect are enacted within the walls of this newspaper and cardboard shanty hastily assembled within the confines of the execution chamber. This is presided over by a priest - since R is a Korean, it is assumed by the guards, but not investigated, that he is a Korean Catholic. R occasionally, dispassionately, critiques their performance and sense of set design.
neglect are enacted within the walls of this newspaper and cardboard shanty hastily assembled within the confines of the execution chamber. This is presided over by a priest - since R is a Korean, it is assumed by the guards, but not investigated, that he is a Korean Catholic. R occasionally, dispassionately, critiques their performance and sense of set design. As we move towards this point within the film, Oshima's early faux-documentary tendency gradually dissolves into, first, a lean and heavily symbolic visual sense, with confining lines, claustrophobic spaces and oblique rising sun and noose images, along with occasional visual allusions to Catholicism. Shot in black and white, Oshima's sense of visual composition is - at first - stark and uncluttered, with both the opening and closing scenes notable for a deliberately clinical sleekness; throughout Oshima avoids fluorishes like fades and dissolves in favor of simple cuts, and occasional new wave touches. Moving into the more theatrical heart of the film, the camera becomes more mobile and fluid, seen to fine effect during the childhood re-creation scene, and a later scene which re-establishes R's identity. Here, shot lengths lengthen, as sets slowly become mobile and Oshima's systematic undermining of perspective, identity and social logic becomes complete.
Oshima's long run of mid-60s to mid-70s films are, for the time being, extremely difficult to see outside of Japan, where several lavish box sets have recently been released. This is highly unfortunate - a number of participants in the global cinematic new wave (including the Japanese one) became known for ethereal experiments longer on style than substance; both inventive and virtuostic in craft, Oshima's work surpasses that of many of his better-known contemporaries. Death By Hanging may well be one of the greatest films of the 1960s to have been seen by very, very few people. Should the opportunity to see it arise, it shouldn't be missed.
