Tatsuo
is a lumberjack, but he’s not okay. He
does not live in harmony with nature or his neighbors. There will come a reckoning sometime soon from
either karma or the village’s patron goddess in Mitsuo Yanagimachi’s Himatsuri, which screens during the Japan
Society’s tribute to the late great film scholar, critic, and historian Donald Richie.
Tatsuo
is the alpha male among the woodsmen working the rocky hills above the village.
Openly defiant of propriety, the married man has recently relocated his not so
former mistress Kimiko to the village.
He mostly thinks of women in sexual terms, including the mountain
goddess. Most villagers are anticipating a windfall from a proposed marine
tourist park, but Tatsuo is the fly in their ointment, refusing to sell his
land smack dab in the middle of the project.
To make matters worse, he is the prime suspect in a rash of oil spills
deliberately targeting the rival fishermen.
Then something significant happens to him during a storm in the woods.
Deeply
steeped in Shinto symbolism, Himatsuri represents
the Japanese art cinema tradition at its most rarified. Visually it is absolutely arresting, but the
on-screen action, such as it is, can be hard to follow. Frankly, the celebrated Tōru Takemitsu’s score—characteristically
straddling musical composition and soundscape—communicates most directly to
viewers the uncanny malevolence afoot.
One
of the younger filmmakers championed by Richie (who also helped translate Himatsuri’s subtitles), Yanagimachi is
clearly inclined to leave much of the film’s mystery unresolved. Indeed, that uncertainty makes the shocking
climax even more unsettling. However, the process of getting from point A to
point not-A will tax many viewers.
Like
a manly throwback to Mifune, Kinya Kitaoji gives a loud and lusty
tour de force performance as Tatsuo, refusing to be dwarfed by cinematographer
Masaki Tamura’s overpowering vistas. Between Kitaoji and the awe-inspiring wrath of nature, nobody else stands much of
chance in Himatsuri. Nevertheless, Kiwako
Taichi makes quite an entrance as Kimiko.
