“Japanese Summer: Double Suicide” is definitely a different kind of Oshima film, no doubt. Overall, “Japanese Summer: Double Suicide” is wild and crazy but pessimistically fun!
Image courtesy of © 1967 Shochiku Co. © 2010 All Rights Reserved.
TITLE: Japanese Summer: Double Suicide (as part of the Oshima’s Outlaw Sixties – Eclipse Series #21)
DURATION: 99 Minutes
DVD INFORMATION: Black and White, 2:35:1 Aspect Ratio, Monaural, Japanese with English subtitles
COMPANY: Janus Films/The Criterion Collection
RELEASED: May 18, 2010
Directed by Nagisa Oshima
Written by Nagisa Oshima, Mamoru Sasaki, Tsutomu Tamura
Produced by Masayuki Nakajima, Takuji Yamaguchi
Music by Hikaru Hayashi
Cinematography by Yasuhiro Yoshioka
Edited by Keiichi Uraoka
Art Direction: Jusho Toda
Starring:
Keiko Sakurai as Nejiko
Kei Sato as Otoko
Masakazu Tamura as Boy
Rokko Toura as Television
Taiji Tonoyama as Toy
Hosei Komatsu as Oni
Hideo Kanze as Bandit
Yoshiyuki Fukuda as Boyfriend
Often called the Godard of the East, Japanese director Nagisa Oshima was one of the most provocative film artists of the twentieth century, and his works challenged and shocked the cinematic world for decades. Following his rise to prominence at Shochiku, Oshima struck out to form his own production company, Sozo-sha, in the early sixties. That move ushered in the prolific period of his career that gave birth to the five films collected here. Unsurprisingly, this studio renegade was fascinated by stories of outsiders—serial killers, rabid hedonists, and stowaway misfits are just some of the social castoffs you’ll meet in these audacious, cerebral entries in the New Wave surge that made Japan a hub of truly daredevil moviemaking.
A sex-obsessed young woman, a suicidal man she meets on the street, a gun-crazy wannabe gangster—these are just three of the irrational, oddball anarchists trapped in an underground hideaway in Oshima’s devilish, absurdist portrait of what he deemed the death drive in Japanese youth culture.
It’s hard to begin and even describe Nagisa Oshima’s 1967 film “Japanese Summer: Double Suicide” (Muri-shinju: Nihon no Natsu). Call it a farce, call it a surreal experience or perhaps Nagisa Oshima’s way of critiquing post-World War II Japan. But nevertheless, “Japanese Summer: Double Suicide” is possibly one of the most entertaining, dark but yet fascinating film that will easily please Oshima fans and also a film that is quite accessible for those who are not familiar with Oshima’s style of filmmaking.
Nagisa Oshima, one of Japan’s most controversial filmmakers and one of the founders of the Japanese New Wave, Oshima was known for taking on Japanese taboos and creating films against the status quo, the filmmaker has been doing his style of films since 1959 and working for the studio Shochiku in order to fulfill the studio’s desire of creating edgier material for the youth market. Oshima would go on to create three films which were known as “The Youth Trilogy” (“Cruel Story of Youth”, “The Sun’s Burial”, “Night and Fog in Japan”).
After politics played a part in Oshima leaving Shochiku, the filmmaker would go on to create his own company known as Sozo-sha (Creation Company) and in celebration of his work from his new studio and many fans bombarding Criterion for more Oshima, The Criterion Collection has chosen Nagisa Oshima’s mid-to-late ’60s films to be part of the latest Eclipse Series Collection known as “Eclipse Series 21: Oshima’s Outlaw Sixties”. The DVD box set would include the following films: “Pleasures of the Flesh” (1965), “Violence at Noon” (1966), “Sing a Song of Sex” (1967), “Japanese Summer: Double Suicide” (1967) and “Three Resurrected Drunkards” (1968).
In 1967, Oshima having created the film “Sing a Song of Sex” which would feature the filmmaker’s disenchantment of Japanese youth and the treatment of Koreans in Japan (which would begin his Korean trilogy), Oshima created “Japanese Summer: Double Suicide” (Muri shinju: Nihon no Natsu), a more accessible film for the public but also surreal to the point that Japan’s prominent writer Yuko Mishima told Oshima that he didn’t understand the film.
“Japanese Summer: Double Suicide” would begin with the Nejiko (played by Keiko Sakurai), the sexually liberated young woman who has recently broken up with her boyfriend. Wanting to start a new, the weird young woman takes off her underwear and her bra and throws it over the bridge. Now all Nejiko wants is to be pleasured by a real man.
She then meets Otoko (played by “Violence at Noon” actor Kei Sato), a military deserter who watches a funeral procession. Immediately these two manage to click but for different reasons. Otoko who is more suicidal and wants someone to kill him, while Nejiko looks at Otoko as the man she want to make love to her.
They then see a chalk drawing of dead lovers on the pavement and both re-enact the scene by laying on top of it. But not long after, a gang comes by and starts digging up a wooden coffin (crate) in the area that the two were spending time at. Because they are witnesses, the gang brings them to their secret compound.
The two are whisked away and now must spend time with a group of mercenaries. A colorful group of characters which include the boy (popular Japanese actor Masakazu Tamura) – a high school gang member who breaks into the compound because he wants to use a real rifle, a bandit who carries a loaded gun, a crazy man who likes to wield a knife and kill people and a few others who are more serious about the job and want to be involved.
It is then revealed that the gang in the compound are actually a secret army who are planning to overthrow the government and the people at the compound are people they have selected in joining them to kill and overthrow the Japanese government.
Serious business for everyone there except Negiko who is more interested in trying to find any guy at the compound who will have sex with her. She teases them that she is not wearing any panties and bra and willing to have sex with anyone at the compound but each person seems to show off of how many people they killed. And because none of these men will have sex with her, she doesn’t feel they have what it takes to be killers, let alone join a secret army.
As the group continue to watch and listen to the news on television, plans change for the group as a Westerner starts killing people in Japan with a sniper and taking away the attention from a possible overthrowing of the government and to make things worse, he’s getting closer to the secret compound.
What will those waiting in the compound do?
VIDEO:
“Japanese Summer: Double Suicide” is presented in black and white (2:35:1 Aspect Ratio) and similar to “Violence at Noon”, the quality of the film looks very good for a film that is over 40-years-old. Unlike “Violence at Noon” which was intentionally created with its high contrast, this film still looks very good with its dark blacks and grays and whites really popping. Overall, another well-presented film for “The Eclipse Series #21 – Oshima’s Outlaw Sixties”.
AUDIO & SUBTITLES:
“Japanese Summer: Double Suicide” is presented in Japanese monaural with English subtitles. Dialogue is clear and heard no significant clicks, pops or humming through the entire film.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Eclipse Series releases do not come with special features but included in the insert is a background on Oshima and the information about the film.
It’s hard to say what we will get with each Nagisa Oshima film. Recurring themes in his film deal with flawed (and often unlikable characters) and Oshima challenging the status quo especially beginning in 1967 as we start to see a more surreal style to Oshima’s work.
Immediately in the first five minutes of the film, you can’t help but grin at the two main characters Negiko and Otoko. Negiko, is unlike any of the female characters that have been featured in a Nagisa Oshima film previous to the making of this film.
The men are typically strong or dominant while the women are beautiful but weak and follow the direction of the men they are with. Negiko is unlike those female characters. She is liberal, free and as she once describes herself “having a screw loose”. Not afraid of any conflict, soldiers or any of the killers. She does what she wants, she’ll sing what she wants, she will flaunt her body in front of every man and tell them straight to their face about how she feels. Definitely a character that showcases Oshima challenging the status quo in Japan with this female lead character.
As for the other men who are wanting to be part of this secret army, each have their own distinct qualities and quirks. Actor Kei Sato who plays Sato is literally a man that is out of it. A man who is hoping that by being with these killers, one of them actually does kill him. Actor Masakazu Tamura known today for his “Furuhata Ninsaburo” detective role is a teenager in this film who talks like he can be something big…if he has a gun or rifle. And these are just a few of the unusual collective whose nihilistic behaviors make for an intriguing film.
1967 was definitely an intriguing year for Oshima fans as it was a year we see a liberation as a filmmaker and “Japanese Summer: Double Suicide” can be looked at Oshima’s way of critiquing Japanese in general and I can see conservatives beginning to become more invidious towards the filmmaker while others outside of Japan perhaps saw a sense of style and a unique oeuvre.  One may think that through his films, Oshima was in fact engaging in polemic messages through these late ’60s films that he had created but possibly to surreal that his detractors could not understand what he was trying to say.
“Japanese Summer: Double Suicide” is a film in which many viewers in 1967 probably looked as moral turpitude at its most unique. Where in reality the Vietnam War was looked at as senseless and violent and people in the world wanted peace. This film showcases senseless violence perpetrated by a Westerner in which some of these mercenaries start to look at as some type of hero. Similar to the “This is Your Land, This is My Land” singers to the Coca Cola Western advertisements in “Sing a Song of Sex”, “Japanese Summer: Double Suicide” appears as a message condoning the Vietnam War and Japanese embracing Western culture.  Perhaps not as far out there or politically in-your-face ala Jean-Luc Godard’s “Weekend” but nevertheless, a film which I found quite entertaining and dare I say fun!
As the fourth entry into Oshima’s Outlaw Sixties”, this fourth film in the DVD set can be seen as that gradual step for Oshima as each release is like a step on ladder which would lead up to his controversial film “In the Realm of the Senses”. Like the character of “Japanese Summer: Double Suicide”, Nejiko shows herself as liberated, free and unafraid of those around there. In 1967, Oshima’s filmmaking style is in essence liberated, free and unafraid of what one may think of his films. No need for elucidation or trying to make a banal storyline.
“Japanese Summer: Double Suicide” is definitely a different kind of Oshima film, no doubt. Overall, “Japanese Summer: Double Suicide” is wild and crazy but pessimistically fun!