Sing a Song of Sex (Nagisa Oshima, 1967)

Cast: Ichiro Araki, Kazuko Tajima, Juzo Itami, Akiko Koyama, Koji Iwabuchi, Kazuyoshi Kushida, Hiroshi Sato, Nobuko Miyamoto, Hiroko Masuda, Hideko Yoshida. Screenplay: Tsutomu Tamura, Mamoru Sasaki, Toshio Tajima, Nagisa Oshima. Cinematography: Akira Takada. Set decoration: Jusho Toda. Film editing: Keiichi Uraoka. Music: Hikaru Hayashi.

Politics and pornography intersect in Sing a Song of Sex, a film which, though it has four credited screenwriters, was largely improvised by its young cast. It's set at a time of political demonstrations, during which the teacher (Juzo Itami) of a group of young men preparing for their examinations tells them that bawdy songs -- the film's Japanese title has also been translated as A Treatise on Bawdy Songs -- are themselves a political statement, a way for the poorer classes to find release from oppression. And so the lines between fantasy and reality are blurred in the film as the young men act, if only in their imaginations, upon their desires, many of which focus on the pretty Mayuko (Kazuko Tajima), whom they depersonalize by referring to her by her seat number in class, 469. Often enigmatic, Sing a Song of Sex is the kind of film for which it's best that many of us just go along for the ride rather than to try to unravel its social and political implications, which are very much of a particular time and place.

The Funeral (Juzo Itami, 1985)

Nobuko Miyamoto and Tsutomu Yamazaki in The Funeral

Wabisuki Inoue: Tsutomu Yamazai
Chizuko Amamiya: Nobuko Miyamoto
Kikue Amamiya: Kin Sugai
Shokichi Amamiya: Hideji Otaki
Shinkichi Amamiya: Kiminobu Okumura
Shokichi's wife: Hiroko Futaba
Priest: Chishu Ryu

Director: Juzo Itami
Screenplay: Juzo Itami
Cinematography: Yonezo Maeda
Art direction: Hiroshi Tokuda
Film editing: Akira Suzuki
Music: Joji Yuasa

The Funeral has been compared to the films of Luis Buñuel for its satiric, sometimes almost surreal portrait of a bourgeois Japanese family, and to the Jean Renoir of A Day in the Country (1936) and  The Rules of the Game (1939) and for its amused look at people tempted by an unusual situation to cast off conventional behavior. But do I also detect something of an homage to Yasujirio Ozu? There's a wonderful cameo by Ozu's favorite actor, Chishu Ryu, as the Rolls-Royce-driving priest, of course, but there's also something about the quiet, almost meditative ending, after the turmoil of the arrival of the mourners, the wake, and the funeral itself, when Kikue Amamiya, the widow, gives her heartfelt eulogy to her husband. Until this point, Kikue has hardly shed a tear while going on with the endless preparations and the inevitable unexpected screwups. But mostly, it's a Juzo Itami film, not so raucous as Tampopo (1985), but as witty in its treatment of human obsessions. In this case, it's the obsession with doing things right, especially on the part of Wabisuki, the son-in-law of the deceased, who with his wife, Chizuko, wants to follow Japanese tradition to the letter, even though both of them are very modernized people. Both are actors, whom we first see filming a TV commercial, and they want to get things staged just right. But since neither has experienced a traditional Japanese funeral, they resort to watching a video called The ABCs of the Funeral, which explains all the elaborate protocol involved. Inevitably, things get more complicated, particularly when Wabisuki's mistress shows up, gets drunk, and drags him into the bushes for sex. There's also the wake, where there's more drinking and a problem of getting the inebriated guests to go home, most of which is shown in a wonderful long take in which we watch outside the windows of the several rooms where guests are being urged to leave. Even the cremation takes a macabre-funny turn when the oven attendant invites the mourners backstage, as it were, to discourse on the difficulties of turning a corpse to ashes. The Funeral is a bit overlong, but it has heart to compensate for its bite.

Tampopo (Juzo Itami, 1985)

Nobuko Miyamoto and Tsutomu Yamazaki in Tampopo

Goro: Tsutomu Yamazaki
Tampopo: Nobuko Miyamoto
The Man in the White Suit: Koji Yakusho
Gun: Ken Watanabe
Pisuken: Rikiya Yasuoka
Shohei: Kinzo Sakura
Noodle-Making Master: Yoshi Kato
Rich Old Man: Hideji Otaki
Mistress of the Man in the White Suit: Fukumi Kuroda
Mistress of the Rich Old Man: Setsuko Shinoi

Director: Juzo Itami
Screenplay: Juzo Itami
Cinematography: Masaki Tamura
Production design: Takeo Kimura
Film editing: Akira Suzuki
Music: Kunihiko Hirai

I would like to experience bliss like that of the baby at its mother's breast at the end of Juzo Itami's Tampopo, oblivious to anything else but its food and its source. If Itami's charmingly satiric film is to be trusted, of course, that kind of bliss is available to us at any well-made meal. I say "well-made" because that's the process that forms the plot of the movie: the quest for the perfect bowl of broth and noodles. There weren't as many foodies around in 1985 as there are today, and Tampopo may be credited with awakening some who now dabble in gastronomy, not to mention the others like me who are voyeurs of the food-obsessed and the translation of cuisine into competitive sport on shows like Top Chef or Chopped. The recent death of Anthony Bourdain brought on a wave of mourning that used to be reserved for the passing of beloved movie stars. But Tampopo is not just a celebration of food and eating; it's also a survey of food as accessory to other pursuits, such as sex -- the interpolated scenes featuring the Man in the White Suit and his girlfriend -- and business -- the scene featuring the stodgy corporate honchos baffled by a French menu and one-upped by a lowly but savvy junior executive. Tampopo feels as alive as it did more than three decades ago.