Takemitsu at Film Forum: Ballad of Orin

Opportunities were limited for blind women in early Twentieth Century Japan. Able-bodied men on the other hand, were in high demand for military service in Siberia. Despite their hardships, a beautiful gozé (a blind troubadour) and an army deserter forge a deep but unconventional bond of love, perfectly reflected by Toru Takemitsu’s strange love songs in Masahiro Shinoda’s The Ballad of Orin, which screens this Wednesday and Thursday as part of Film Forum’s two week retrospective of films scored by Takemitsu.

Abandoned as a young girl by her mother, Orin was taken in by a gozé house for musical training. In no way should gozé be confused with geisha. The women lived a monastic existence as brides of the Buddha. Of course, they were often called to entertain at worldly parties, bringing them into contact with men and temptation. Those who succumb are banished to a life on road as wandering minstrels, which indeed happens to Orin.

Senzo Tsurukawa is not like most men Orin meets in her travels. Rather than moving in for the conquest, he offers himself as her platonic protector. He even insists they call each other brother and sister, much to her frustration. Yet, even though they want different things from each other, the love they share is genuine. They even seem to have a semi-respectable future together running a clog stall, until Tsurukawa’s past starts to catch up with him. By the time they reach the appropriately ominous sounding village of Obama in the Wakasa province, tragedy seems inevitable.

Ballad is a perfect choice for Film Forum’s Takemitsu retrospective, given the role music plays in the story. Yet, despite the prominence of Orin’s songs, the music never overwhelms the on-screen drama. Though traditional in form, Takemitsu gives his score a postmodern-minimalist twist that sets a delicate but unsettling tone throughout the film.

Though worlds away from his New Wave noir films like Pale Flower, Ballad is one of Shinoda’s masterworks. There are unshakable images throughout the film, even during the opening titles. Also aptly known as Melody in Gray, Shinoda and cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa use a color palette dominated by grays and greens, making coastal Japan look like Seattle. It perfectly suits Takemitsu’s melancholy score and Shinoda’s naturalistic approach.

Shima Iwashita is fantastic as Orin, powerfully projecting vulnerability and passion, without the benefit of her eyes. Yoshio Harada plays Tsurukawa like a young Toshirō Mifune, full of gruff bluster, but with a soft heart concealed inside. Their chaste love is arguably one of the most touching movie romances of all time.

Having also recently screened as part of the Shinoda sidebar at the 48th New York Film Festival, Film Forum’s Takemitsu retrospective will be one of the few chances to see Ballad on the big screen in the foreseeable future. A truly haunting film, Shinoda’s Ballad is highly recommended this Wednesday and Thursday (12/15 & 12/16), as is the entire Takemitsu series, which concludes on Thursday.

Takemitsu at Film Forum: The Ceremony

Between the war crimes, radical politics, suspicious deaths, and extreme sexual dysfunction, it is hard to imagine a more toxic family than the Sakuradas. Often incorporating both Western and Eastern forms as well as electronic effects in an eerie minimalism, Toru Takemitsu was the perfect composer to score their downfall. His unsettling string figures underscore the rotten moral core of the fading Sakurada clan in Nagisa Oshima’s The Ceremony, which screens tomorrow as part of Film Forum’s two week retrospective of films scored by Takemitsu.

Masuo Sakurada is the man from Manchuria. At least, that is the literal translation of his name. However, considering his severe case of arrested development, his manhood seems somewhat open to question. It is hardly surprising, considering the baggage he is saddled with. While on a forced march in Manchuria, Sakurada and his mother were compelled to abandon his younger brother, even though they could still hear him, buried alive and desperately wailing for help. Years later, listening with his ear to the earth for his brother’s phantom cries remains one of Sakurada’s persistent personal rituals.

In contrast, Sakurada’s overbearing grandfather is only observes the stately rituals that ostensibly bind the family together: weddings and funerals. We come watch five such family functions in flashback as Sakurada and his cousin Ritsuko rush to the island retreat of a third cousin, Terumichi, whose cryptic telegram may well be his suicide note. Not simply cousins, both the introverted Masuo and the socially confident Terumichi shared a sexual attraction to both Ritsuko and her mother Setsuko. Mix in the cousins’ ambiguous parentage and then sit back and watch as the taboos shatter.

Despite the potentially lurid nature of its story, Ceremony maintains a tone of high tragedy, sort of like watching all of Shakespeare’s Freudian scenes spliced together into one play. There are plenty of wincing moments, but nothing tops the film’s centerpiece. In what must be the most painful wedding in cinematic history, Sakurada’s grandfather forces him to complete the ceremony alone after his would-be bride jilts him at the aisle. One has to see the film to fully understand just how bad it gets. In a truly tricky part, Kenzo Kawarasaki provokes both sympathy and contempt as Sakurada, often simultaneously.

Oshima, the New Wave rebel, had a talent for depicting sexually charged psychological implosions on-screen (as in Pleasures of the Flesh), but Ceremony’s bite is particularly potent. He was also had a strong visual sense for color film, above and beyond many of his contemporaries, whose best work was arguably in black and white. Indeed, that early 1970’s color which always somehow feels slightly off, perfectly fits the disturbing vibe of Ceremony and the sounds of Takemitsu’s characteristically disciplined discord. Altogether, it packs quite a punch. A fitting selection for the Takemitsu series, Ceremony screens Sunday night (12/5) at Film Forum.