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• juliaw

  ★★★★★★★★★★ 13 Eki 2026

  Nagisa Oshima's final cinematic testament arrives not as an explosive act of radical provocation, but as an austere, intensely suffocating meditation on the corrosive nature of desire within a closed institutional framework. The rigid, hyper-stylized world of the Shinsengumi in late-Edo period Kyoto is rendered with a chilly, clinical detachment that feels closer to Chantal Akerman's studies of domestic geometry or the ascetic formalism of Robert Bresson than any conventional jidaigeki. By stripping the genre of its standard romanticized chivalry, Oshima exposes the fragile architecture of patriarchal discipline, laying bare how an enclosed homosocial order collapses the moment an uncontainable aesthetic object enters its orbit. The film centers its psychological intrigue on the arrival of young Sozaburo Kano, played by Ryuhei Matsuda in an astonishingly inscrutable screen debut. Matsuda possesses an androgynous, marble-like presence that deflects psychological probing. His face is an opaque mask, entirely devoid of sentimental vulnerability, which makes him the perfect mirror for the unexpressed passions and anxieties of the seasoned warriors around him. Rather than presenting Kano as an active instigator, Oshima positions him as an elusive void. He is an aesthetic rupture within a hyper-masculine space governed by strict rules, code books, and severe corporal punishment. Every gaze directed toward him by his comrades becomes fraught with repressed tension, destabilizing the absolute military order that the Shinsengumi claims to embody. Visually, the spatial geography of the training compounds and tatami quarters is deployed with mathematical precision. The camera remains largely static or glides along calculated tracking lines, emphasizing the rectilinear symmetry of sliding shoji screens, polished wooden hallways, and disciplined training dojos. Oshima frames the characters within rigid, box-like interiors, turning domestic spaces into psychological prisons where every glance and posture is policed. The blocking of the actors is intensely ritualistic. Men sit in exact formations, bow with measured mechanical deference, and execute lethal sword strokes with practiced, emotionless efficiency. Yet this formal restraint only heightens the simmering erotic dread underneath. The frame suffocates the viewer precisely because the human instincts trapped within it are denied any natural outlet, forcing desire into violent, clandestine, and paranoid channels. In this respect, the work invites immediate, fascinating comparison to Claire Denis's Beau Travail, released the exact same year. Both films dissect the homoerotics of military discipline within an isolated fraternity, observing how the presence of an enigmatic figure triggers an institutional autoimmune response. But whereas Denis leans into tactile, sun-drenched physicality and the poetry of rhythmic choreography against desert landscapes, Oshima prefers shadowy interiors, muted earth tones, and a deliberate, almost theatrical theatricality. The violence here is sudden, dry, and terrifyingly perfunctory. Duels are not celebrated as thrilling exhibitions of martial skill; they are conducted like administrative executions, marked by abrupt, visceral clashes of metal and the quiet thud of falling bodies. Takeshi Kitano, portraying the historical commander Toshizo Hijikata, anchors the film with a weary, dryly cynical gravity. Kitano's minimalist acting style fits Oshima's visual grammar seamlessly. With barely a twitch of his facial muscles and a casual, almost detached vocal delivery, he observes the escalating madness with the cold pragmatism of a bureaucratic survivor. Hijikata understands that the fatal flaw of his brotherhood is not military incompetence, but the fundamental impossibility of stamping out basic human instinct through didactic doctrine. Tadanobu Asano, cast as the volatile Tashiro, provides a compelling, earthly counterpoint to Matsuda's ethereal chill, embodying the raw, undisguised longing that threatens to shatter the school's fragile decorum. A crucial element that elevates this work beyond a sterile cinematic gesture is the extraordinary musical score composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto. Eschewing the conventional period instrumentation that often suffocates historical drama in nostalgic pastiche, Sakamoto crafts an eerie, modernist sonic landscape. Pulsing synthesizer textures, sparse, crystalline piano notes, and haunting, off-kilter motifs weave through the scenes, functioning as a psychological subtext that destabilizes the period setting. The music sounds deeply modern, almost alien against the classical architecture, reinforcing Oshima's intent to treat this historical milieu not as an exercise in dusty heritage cinema, but as a timeless laboratory for studying repression, control, and ritual. Oshima's screenplay is remarkably daring in how it refuses to yield to standard narrative catharsis. There are no grand emotional declarations, no dramatic third-act revelations, and certainly no indulgence in hollow sentimentality. The narrative unfolds through an accumulation of oblique vignettes, brief interrogations, formal duels, and silent, loaded glances in dimly lit corridors. Some sequences are punctuated by bold, painterly intertitles that break the illusion of continuous cinematic immersion, reminding the spectator of the constructed, historical nature of the text. This distancing effect prevents the viewer from consuming the narrative as mere melodrama, forcing an intellectual engagement with the mechanisms of power on display. If there is a limitation, it lies in Oshima's deliberate emotional frigidity, which occasionally risks tipping from rigorous aesthetic austerity into an almost academic exercise. The film keeps its audience at arm's length with such unwavering dedication that certain narrative threads feel prematurely attenuated rather than subtly ambiguous. Yet this icy restraint is precisely what makes the film so haunting in retrospect. It refuses to flatter our desire for neat psychological explanations. What remains is the indelible image of a closed world collapsing under the weight of its own unspoken laws, consumed by an obsession it cannot master or confess. It stands as a daring, deeply singular final statement from one of cinema's most uncompromising iconoclasts.

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