NAGISA OSHIMA at Lincoln Center
Monday, September 22nd, 2008Starting this week, in conjunction with the New York Film Festival, Lincoln Center will be presenting a sidebar on rebel-rebel Japanese director Nagisa Oshima called “In the Realm of Oshima” (September 27 - October 13). I haven’t seen enough Oshima, and this is a perfect chance to correct my shortcomings as they present 26 of his films, half of them in brand new 35mm prints.
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We’ll be talking about highlights from the series all week, but here’s three that jump out of the program:
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BAND OF NINJA (Thursday, October 2 @ 8:40pm) - cinematic bomb-thrower Oshima making a ninja movie? An animated ninja movie? We’re there. Experimental to a fault, this rarely-seen flick is about a ninja-led revolution against a feudal lord. (Watch the trailer)
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IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES (Saturday, Sept 27 @ midnight; Friday, October 3 @ 10pm) - a new 35mm print of Oshima’s most notorious movie, a recreation of the infamous Sada Abe sex murder case. This is the only porno movie ever made that’s simultaneously a work of art. Hardcore screwing mixes it up with hardcore political ideology, culminating in a revolutionary act of castration. Expect the raincoat crowd and the New York Times Book Review crowd to be out in full effect.
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MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE (Sunday, September 28 @ 6:45pm; Saturday, October 11 @ 9pm) - a new 35mm print of one of Oshima’s most unfairly dismissed. Starring David Bowie, Ryuichi Sakamoto (who also did the shimmering score), Tom Conti and Takeshi Kitano in his first motion picture role, this movie was released in 1983 and folks pegged it as pop stars at play. No such thing. A simmering, volatile study of repressed sexual desire, masochism, sadism and mercy in a WW II Japanese prison camp, everyone should see this movie once. At times annoying and pretentious, at other times beautiful, gritty and poetic, it’s the kind of film that starts conversations and destroys expectations. (Also, if you think you’ve seen this movie, think again. Most video releases feature a hacked up international version of the film).
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