The film was shown on TV in NYC with some cuts and a commentary by the film critic, Donald Richie, who explained that some scenes which were culturally incomprehensible to a Western audience had to be cut.
I first saw this film with the dancer and mime performer, Lindsay Kemp in the Winter of 1975 on a television set in New York City. The film was shown with some cuts and a commentary by the film critic, Donald Richie, who explained that some scenes which were culturally incomprehensible to a Western audience had to be cut. At the time, I saw the film I had never lived in Japan, and my family consisted of an Iranian-American step-father and Japanese mother. I was going to a school in Greenwich Village where the children of Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary were going. So seeing this film is like experiencing a culture shock. I still feel that it is a masterwork of Avant-Garde Art and one of the greatest cinemas created during this period.
I was watching the subtitles since the Japanese dialogue in this film was virtually incomprehensible to me. But what is more incomprehensible is to try to figure out the human relationships between characters. Two lovers who elope keep saying "Moushiwakenai" ("forgive me" ) to the man's wife whom the husband is leaving behind. Then the two lovers, instead of finding a new life together commit a double suicide. If this story was simply shot as a television drama such as a soap opera, it would never have achieved the international recognition that it has.
During my late teens, I spent a lot of time watching and studying Bunraku, a traditional puppet theater while holding a book of translations in English. The language is difficult but so is the culture. I soon realized that these stories are virtually impossible to understand without guidebooks by people like Donald Richie and Ian Buruma to explain what the unwritten cultural difference is.
I have written about Masahiro Shinoda's intentions in making films depicting what is unique in Japanese culture in the essay I wrote for about "Face of Another". Shinoda contrasts himself with Kobe Abe, the novelist who wrote "Woman in the Dunes" and "Face of Another", stating that the reason Kobe Abe's works became popular in the West is because they depict situations which could have happened in Western countries. The characters do not act different from people in Europe or America. However, Shinoda has written many times that it was his intention to make films where the characters behave in a very uniquely Japanese manner. This makes his films more difficult to understand in Western countries. If the film is highly artistic and has music by composers such as Toru Takemitsu, it will be appreciated as a part of contemporary cinema. However, if it was shot as a popular drama, it will not be very popular outside of Japan since the audience may not understand the psychology behind the characters. I believe that this was one of the reasons that some of his later films were not very popular abroad.
The use of music and sounds by Toru Takemitsu in this film, "Double Suicide" is incredible. Indonesian Gamelan sounds are used. Music from the Japanese Bunraku is cut and used like musique concrete. The art direction by Kiyoshi Awazu combines the elements of the traditional Bunraku stage with a stage evocative of experimental Brechtian theater. Actors from Shuji Terayama's theatre group, Tenjo Sajiki appear as kuroko ( stagehands dressed entirely in black) and geishas.
Masahiro Shinoda began his career as an assitant director to film directors such as Yasujiro Ozu.zu is known internationally for directing "Tokyo Story". Although Ozu is widely seen as a very Japanese director, who depicted the average life in post-World war 2 Japan. Shinoda writes that Ozu was very much influenced by Western contemporary art and literature such as surrealism. Although the characters seem to behave in a very realistic manner, the way people act in 1950s and 1960s modern Japan, Shinoda says that the dialogue is actually unrealistic, and was composed emphasizing the rhythms. According to Shinoda, Ozu had much in common with European film directors of the same period, such as Alain Resnais, who made films with Marguerite Duras and Alain Robbe-Grillet.
I was also reminded of Yasujiro Ozu's films, when I first saw Marguerite Duras' films.
Popular culture is often the most misunderstood when taken abroad. Works of contemporary art and high culture often have similarities in other cultures, and are appreciated by the intellectuals in each country. And often cinema, music and literature that seem to be exotic in an artistic way is that way because it is influenced by modern contemporary arts and philosophy. Some of the films by Kenji Mizoguchi and Akira Kurosawa were influenced by Western literature and were made to be popular amongst the intellectuals abroad. But soap operas and JPOP and JROCK which are made for the domestic market will always be more difficult to distribute world wide since they depict emotions and behavior of the common people, who come from a different culture, and yet are dressed in Western clothes and is shown accompanied by modern Western sounds and rhythms.
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