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GOHATTO
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Japan - France - United Kingdom
2000 / 35 mm / Color / 101 min.
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TABOO / TABOU
Kyoto, spring 1865. In the Nishi-Honganji temple, the militia of Shinsengumi is selecting new recruits in the presence of the commander Isami Kondo and the captain Toshizo Hijikata. The candidates have to fight the militia's top warrior, Soji Okita. On this day, two men stand out from the rest and they are accepted into the militia -- Hyozo Tashiro, a lower-ranking samurai from the Kurume clan, and Sozaburo Kano, a young man whose physical beauty catches everyone's eye. Tashiro is immediately smitten with Kano.
I wanted to surprise the Japanese public by choosing a work that was slightly different. It's not merely about the militia but about the fall of the shogun Tokugawa and the restoration of the emperor... TABOO is about a rigid society and a hierarchical structure. -- Nagisa Oshima
The film's subject matter apparently shocked the Japanese, (but) it could be his most classical, conservative film, precise in its stylistic choices and symmetrical in its storytelling... The film's moral may be reduced to a single phrase -- Jealousy among men is a terrible thing,' as one character puts it -- but the darkly beautiful imagery casts a complex poetic spell. As in REALM OF THE SENSES, Oshima suggests that violence is our all-too-human way of approaching the sublime. -- David Kehr (CitySearch)
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Script: Nagisa Oshima. D'apr�s deux nouvelles/Based on two novellas: Maegami No Sozaburo & Sanjogawara Ranjin. Tir�es de/From: Shinsengumi Keppuroku. De/By: Ryotaro Shiba.
Phot.: Toyomichi Kurita.
Ed.: Tomoyo Oshima.
Mus.: Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Cast: Beat Takeshi (Takeshi Kitano), Ryuhei Matsuda, Shinji Takeda, Tadanobu Asano, Koji Matoba, Tommys' Masa, Masatoh Eve, Uno Kanda, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Tomorowo Taguchi, Yoichi Sai, Jiro Sakagami, Zakoba Katsura, Kei Sato.
Prod.: Nobuyoshi Otani, Jean Labadie, Jeremy Thomas, Shochiku Co. Ltd., 4-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104 8422 (Japon), t�l.: (81-3) 5550 1623, fax: (81-3) 5550 1654, e-mail: [email protected] / BAC Films (France) / Recorded Picture Co. (Royaume-Uni).
Sales: Le Studio Canal Plus, 17, rue Dumont d'Urville, 75116 Paris (France), t�l.: (33-01) 44 43 98 00, fax: (33-01) 47 20 13 58.
Canadian Distributor: TVA International.
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Nagisa Oshima
Born in Kyoto, Japan in 1932, Nagisa Oshima studied law and political science at the University of Kyoto before embarking on a career in film. He worked as an assistant director at the Shochiku studios and started his own film magazine. He made his directorial debut in 1959 with A TOWN OF LOVE AND HOPE and immediately established himself as an iconoclastic filmmaker unafraid to tackle political and social subjects considered taboo. Among his features: DEATH BY HANGING (1968), DIARY OF A SHINJUKU THIEF (1968), BOY (1969), THE CEREMONY (1971), IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES (1976), EMPIRE OF PASSION (1978), MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE (1983), MAX MON AMOUR (1986), Kyoto, My Mother's Place (1991) and 100 YEARS OF JAPANESE CINEMA (1994). |
