Everything is Fine: Tomorrow's Sun (1959)

Oshima's career started up with what looks like a candy-colored film of pure excitement. Young, attractive kids run across the frame in bright clothes, they sing and dance, fight with swords without an ounce or drop of blood letting and relax on the beach. There are no financial problems, no real violence, girls are always cute and relationships always work out. Even the title of Tomorrow's Sun (Asu no taiyo) (1959) builds up good feelings. Even when the sun goes out for the day, there's always tomorrow, right?

Tomorrow's Sun (Asu no taiyo) (1959) Dir. Nagisa Oshima

Sweet Temptation: Pleasures of the Flesh (1965)

Thanks to some easy Googling, I can pinpoint the exact date I saw Nagisa Oshima's Pleasures of the Flesh (Etsuraku) (1965). It was a April 24th, 2009 and including my friend, I must have been one of only fifteen people in the theater in the enormous Egyptian Theater. I had no clue what to expect aside from what I have read about Oshima and from the brief description of the film in the American Cinematheque calender. And what I read about Oshima was always the same thing: he's the Japanese Godard (which is a very inaccurate assessment).

When I stepped out of the theater after watching the double feature of this and Japanese Summer: Double Suicide (Muri-shinju: Nihon no natsu) (1967), I was surprised enormously by both pictures, particularly PotF. I tried to watch as much Oshima as I could and read every bit of text I could find on his films, but every where I read, PotF is treated as minor Oshima. David Desser in his book Eros Plus Massacre calls it "an interesting failure" while Maureen Turim's The Films of Nagisa Oshima rarely touches upon the film, even in context of his whole career. With what little I can find about the film or what others may say, it's become one of the films I consider an underrated masterpieces.

Pleasures of the Flesh (Etsuraku) (1965) Dir. Nagisa Oshima