Violence at High Noon (Hakachu no torima, 1966)

Oshima Nagisa

Japan

99 min, black and white, Japanese (English subtitles)

Filmed in high-contrast black and white, Violence at High Noon is a confusing and very disturbing exploration into the jagged world of compulsion. A sociopath with haggard features, Eisuke (Sato Kei) rapes and kills women terrorizing the entire country as the "phantom killer." Unknown to the police, two women are aware of his identity but for some reason do not come forward. The first, Shino (Kawaguchi Saeda), his former coworker at a failed collective farm, is working as a maid for the Inagaki family when Eisuke suddenly shows up and brutalizes her at knife point until she faints. His lecherous groping is interrupted by Mrs. Inagaki, whom she rapes and murders. The second, Matsuko (Koyama Akiko), his wife, is working as a teacher when a letter from Shino informs her of her husband's extracurricular activities.

The complexly structured narrative slowly unfolds, revealing the sordid past that links the three characters as sure as Buddhist karma. Although it makes a point of depicting the first time Eisuke experienced the thrill of his pathologic urges, the film is really about the struggle of the two women to free themselves from Eisuke's psychological grip. Shino out of hatred, and Matsuko out of love.

Human life is not held in high esteem by any of the characters who seem in a hurry to part with this transitory existence. Shino's lover back in the years of the collective farm is Genji (Toura Matsuhiro), who fears loneliness and, convinced that he shall die alone if he lives to old age, resolves to commit suicide at the height of his popularity (he has just been elected assemblyman by the villagers with a huge majority). Inexplicably, he does not seem to want to find a way out. He proposes to Matsuko, who is clearly not in love with him, perhaps fully anticipating her rejection. On the other hand, he does not ask Shino to marry him even though she loves him and would conceivably agree. Instead, he demands that she die with him in a traditional lovers' double suicide. She concedes and they hang from a tree except that she survives because Eisuke cuts her down.

While she's unconscious, Eisuke rapes her transforming instantaneously from a savior to a beast. When Shino leaves the village in shame because of her failure to die, she warns Matsuko about Eisuke, but the latter is so blindly in love with him that she ignores the warning and persists in marrying him in spite of him raping her on the spot. For some odd reason, she never considers the fact that Eisuke is seemingly incapable of normal sexual relationship --- unless the woman is helpless, barely breathing in his hands, he is impotent. Still, when she realizes that he is the "phantom killer," Matsuko does not turn him in but makes more desperate attempts to hold him.

The two women struggle with their conscience, fearing that every delay is costing another woman her dignity (and perhaps life), and yet are unable to bring themselves to tell the police. Shino, out of deference toward Matsuko's boundless love, which seems to remind her of her own devotion to Genji, wants to leave the decision to Eisuke's wife. She still hopes that it will be the right decision, and so she persists in urging Matsuko to make it. Despite her hatred of Eisuke, something bordering on revulsion, she clearly recognizes that for the other, he is the realization of a selfless dream. Matsuko, oblivious to right or wrong, is ready to forgive and forget as long as Eisuke comes back to her or makes love to her at least once with warmth. She even tells him so. Yet, as everyone else in the film, he is unwilling to work for his own salvation, even if it is in the simple terms of avoiding capture. He is cold, indifferent, and unmoved, and seems not to care what will happen to him. He cannot even simulate affection for his wife; he'd rather perish.

This is an odd film for Oshima. Unlike his social dramas that critique the postwar Japanese development and blame evil on rampant poverty and rapid modernization, the protagonist here is simply evil in a very banal way that lacks a social explanation. There is some poverty but it is not seen as the reason but as a convenient excuse. Eisuke's impulses are dark, mysterious, and thus more frightening. He is just as helpless to resist them as his victims to resist him. However, his helplessness does not arouse compassion, only a grim determination that the only way to help him is to stop him.

In the world of Violence at High Noon, the constraints on action are entirely internal. The driving force is not the environment, it does not even function as a proper context. Instead, the characters create their own realities, frequently at odds with the physical, and then act out their tragedies in accordance with the laws of their own making. Thus, it is not surprising when Shino and Matsuko seek simultaneous release in a double suicide of their own. It is also "normal" that Genji would kill himself and Eisuke would rape, kill, and yet get caught in apathy.

Despite the low ratings that the film sometimes gets, Violence at High Noon is one of the best outings by Oshima. Intricately shot, with many cuts, floating cameras, beautiful asymmetric compositions, jagged edges, and expressionistic structure, it is an engrossing experience that should scarcely be missed. It is also more personal in its lack of social commentary and the bizarre construction of identity by its protagonists. A strange food for thought.

October 12, 2001