RECENT VIEWINGS: Shohei Imamura

Shohei Imamura's exciting and tragic Pigs and Battleships (Buta to gunkan, 1961) juggles the entertainment and humor of an increasingly manic gangster caper film and the conviction of a sociopolitical commentary with invigorating showmanship. Small-time hoods of a seaport town feed upon the close American base (and vice versa, of course) but Imamura focuses on a  struggling couple. The young man is enticed by the corrupt ventures of the post-war Japanese-American relationship as the young woman is increasingly repulsed by the sordid opportunities available for her. The push-pull between the polite dextirity celebrated in Japanese culture and its unseemly flipside finally erupts. Imamura delivers a bizarre, captivating gunfight setpiece in which the titular pigs (a commodity of blackmarket enterprise) quite literally overtake lowlifes and the port city itself. It's an incredible sequence. Imamura has enough insight, however, to allow the livestock as well as the warships of the film's title to be very allegorical as well. Although very convoluted at times, Pigs and Battleships engagingly tackles very tangible themes even as further exploration uncovers less obvious commentary (i.e. Japan's relationship to Asian neighbors immediately after American control and the Korean War).