Unmasking the Japanese New Wave: The Face of Another and Onibaba
Arguably, few national cinemas have engaged as extensively and deliberately with the challenges posed by their nation’s historical and cultural circumstances as the Japanese film industry. The decline of the ancient warrior, the conflict between traditional values and Western economic influences, and the subsequent identity crisis experienced by Japan, collectively influenced the trajectory of Japanese cinema. This resulted in the emergence of films centred around sword-wielding samurais, gangsters, disaster epics, and depictions of primitive eras. Furthermore, the medium also reflected themes of wartime propaganda, traumatic portrayals of defeat, nuclear holocaust, and the period of occupation. The display of Japan’s cultural preferences and its emphasis on Japanese identity has consistently found expression in the realm of film.
While the French New Wave (with much of its elements drawing inspiration from the likes of Kurosawa) established itself in the late 1950s, Oshima Nagisa influenced a new wave of Japanese filmmaking with his film A Town of Love and Hope, issuing challenges to established social and cinematic conventions. In a societal context such as Japan, where collective identity, stability, reverence for the elderly and their customs, and a tendency to refrain from public emotional expression are highly valued, the aforementioned developments, as anticipated by Oshima, were both startling and consequential. These developments signified a potential paradigm shift in Japanese culture, suggesting a shift towards radical reevaluation.
Desser (1998) characterizes the Japanese New Wave as a collection of films that emerged subsequent to the release of Oshima’s A Town of Love and Hope. These films are notable for their explicit political positioning, either in a broad sense or in relation to particular issues. Additionally, they employ a deliberately disjointed narrative structure, deviating from the established cinematic conventions prevalent in Japan at the time. The New Wave is considered an avant-garde movement, as defined by Renato Poggioli in his book The Theory of the Avant Garde. According to Poggioli, a movement is primarily formed with the intention of achieving a positive outcome or a tangible goal. The Japanese New Wave movement, although it didn’t explicitly state its specific goals, focused on developing a film content and form that could expose the contradictions present in Japanese society. Additionally, it aimed to highlight the growing materialistic values and imperialist alliances within Japanese culture. The term “avant-garde” can be interpreted in two distinct manners: firstly, as being at the forefront of a new social movement, and secondly, as employing artistic approaches that are innovative and thought-provoking.
It’s important to note that the avant-garde and political films that make up the Japanese New Wave took place within the framework of the mainstream milieu. One of the factors contributing to the emergence of the new wave movement in Japan during the 1960s was its competition with television. In the span of this decade, a significant decline in the number of theaters was seen, with over fifty percent of cinemas closing down. Concurrently, the country had a substantial surge in the quantity of television sets, which rose from two million in 1958 to over twenty two million by 1969. Film corporations were thus inclined to heed the perspectives of young, frustrated filmmakers, a practice that would not have been observed a decade prior or, indeed, a decade afterwards. Many of these filmmakers had a background in theatre and documentary, in contrast to the preceding generation of filmmakers who transitioned from the field of painting. One of them was Teshigahara Hiroshi. (Richie)
The Face of Another
Teshigahara demonstrated a keen interest in portraying accurate details and adopting an anthropological perspective in his films. In the 1960s, concerns pertaining to identity were of significant prominence in Japan, as well as the rest of the world. Teshigahara, in collaboration with the author Kobo Abe, delved into existential concerns that emerged from the modern individual’s search for self-identity. Both Abe’s novel, The Face of Another, and Teshigahara’s film adaptation explore a psychological narrative centered around Okuyama whose face has been tragically disfigured due to an industrial accident. After being disfigured and cut out from society, he makes the decision to adopt a false persona in order to reconnect with the world. According to McDonald, he does more than hide behind this device, “he embarks on an aggressive masquerade, making the mask his “real” face, living in terms of its “reality.” A disabled person’s test of strength, therefore, becomes a contest between conflicting identities.”
The primary focus of the film revolves around the objective narrative that delves into Okuyama’s quest for a renewed sense of self. The aspects of rationalizing and philosophizing become apparent during the dialogue between Okuyama and his doctor. This forces us to engage in more nuanced narrative language, as we weigh the doctor’s perspective on his own creation against Okuyama’s shifting understanding of his own identity. It is interesting to note that The Face of Another and Bergman’s Persona were released three months apart from each other. These films exhibit both visual and thematic similarities, particularly in their depiction of a complex dynamic between the caregiver and patient. However, it is important to highlight that in the case of Persona, the caregiver’s crisis of identity takes a comparable level of significance, whereas in The Face of Another, the doctor’s predicament revolves around his own creation.
The film starts with a speech by the doctor. He talks to the camera and points to the plastic limbs submerged in his tank. “Do you understand what they are? They are replicas of a human body.” The camera focuses on the finger he picks, as he says: “This is not a finger. This is nothing but inferiority shaped like a finger.” (In an almost Magrittean sense except the doctor provides an association with the limb seeking to ascertain the viewer’s comprehension of the nature and purpose of said objects.) He throws the plastic finger back in the tank, while claiming that his role more closely resembles that of a psychologist, as he has not just fixed the patient’s lost finger, but rather remedied their underlying inferiority complex.
Despite its short duration, there is a lot going on in this first scene. The doctor’s words have an air of abstraction, establishing the film’s dense tone early on. Also, it’s unclear who the doctor’s address is directed toward. Since he addresses the camera directly, we get the idea that we are actual patients of his. However, it’s also possible that he’s communicating with a patient who isn’t in frame. We are kept from slipping into a straightforward and simple emotional involvement by the doctor’s philosophical reasoning and the rhetorical ambiguity of the passage. Instead, a Brechtian distance is established as the film’s primary rhetorical posture early on.
The initial sequence additionally provides a preview of the diverse stylistic effects that the film will heavily rely upon. As the doctor is speaking, the camera meticulously investigates diverse forms of human anatomy. Teshigahara’s artistic oeuvre heavily highlights the motif of dissection, utilizing both visual and verbal elements to convey this thematic preoccupation. The viewer is encouraged to analyze and examine the existential problems that contemporary man faces, similar to an ideal psychologist who possesses intellectual clarity and open-mindedness. (McDonald)
According to McDonald, Teshigahara fiercely pursues the idea of liberation throughout this film. Okuyama appears to have escaped social constraints by hiding behind his attractive mask. His anonymity is attacked from without. First, after resenting her part as an adulteress in his masquerade, his wife refuses to follow his regulations. Then the landlord’s daughter sees through his disguise. (As he prepares his mask, she peeks through the door, symbolizing the threats to his fictional reality.) Unfortunately, the child is more than a nosy. She humiliatingly uses his fragrance to identify him. Ultimately, the doctor is also seen as a threat. He knows the masked man. He can make masks for other men desiring this freedom. Freedom’s deceptive nature has long been questioned. Several mirror images have done that. The camera catches Okuyama observing himself, veiled and safe in his hideout. The mask is amazing, adaptable, and expressive. It effortlessly smiles and frowns in the mirror. Unfortunately, the mirror only shows the “real” mask, it doesn’t reveal the true self. Okuyama becomes a prisoner of illusory reality as the mask and masquerade become more realistic. After creating an identity, he loses self-control. Since he is only mirror-image reflecting, he cannot reflect morally. Only his image remains after his disappearance.
Onibaba
Kaneto Shindo’s Onibaba narrates the tale of two unidentified peasant women, a mother and her daughter-in-law, who manage to endure in a war-ravaged Japan of the fourteenth century. Their survival strategy involves the act of slaying wandering samurai and afterwards profiting from the sale of their armor within the black market. Upon the younger woman expressing her desire to cohabit with a dubious peasant named Hachi who has lately fled military duty, the elderly woman promptly recognizes the terrible ramifications it would have on her own survival. The old woman puts on a demon mask that she took from a fallen samurai, with the intention of scaring her daughter-in-law so that she will continue to live with her. This calculated action is intended to instill fear in her daughter-in-law, compelling her to remain with her. However, the mask possesses a curse, resulting in its fusion with the old woman’s face. Upon its eventual removal, her face is revealed to be burnt with scarring that bears a striking resemblance to the disastrous effects of atomic radiation burns. The fact that Shindo based the makeup design for the intense unmasking moment in Onibaba on images of disfigured hibakusha (People affected by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing) is a revelation that wasn’t too surprising. The old woman, the “demon hag” that gives the movie its name, is both the primary victim and the main aggressor.
Onibaba effectively challenges the prevailing portrayal of the female figure symbolizing the aftermath of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, commonly referred to as the “A-bomb maiden.” Maya Morioka Todeschini has demonstrated how the figure commonly referred to as the “A-bomb maiden” has characteristics that are often associated with an idealized representation of youthful femininity and beauty, devoid of sexual connotations. Additionally, this figure is seen as exemplifying stoic parental sacrifice and upholding traditional Japanese cultural values. The portrayal of Onibaba’s elderly woman character elicits associations with the victimized hibakusha, yet she deviates significantly from conventional notions of the “A-bomb maiden.” She does not possess the attributes often associated with youth or physical beauty, yet she emanates a strong sexuality. She tries hard to keep ties with the daughter in law instead of taking her leave with a quiet, selfless resignation.
Keiko McDonald states how the old woman’s hannya mask is a Noh theater relic that represents “jealous fury that transforms a woman into a demon” and “internalized sorrow.” However, the mask’s relationship with the elderly woman serves as a curse rather than a celebration of the classical Japanese theatrical heritage. If the typical “A-bomb maiden” represents the beauty and innovation of traditional “Japaneseness” in the face of the atomic bomb, the old woman of Onibaba shows the painful, hidden side of this picture. There is no desired redemption through idealized femininity in the stark contrast between the two; rather, it relates to the tragedy of Hiroshima.
According to Lowenstein Onibaba also utilizes Noh as a representation of Japanese national identity; however, the film portrays this representation in a disturbingly unfamiliar manner, rather than a reassuringly recognizable one. Shindo incorporates the hannya mask and employs intense drumming accompanied by human vocalizations in the music for Onibaba, composed by Hayashi Hikaru, which can be seen as obvious references to the Noh theatrical tradition. However, Shindo challenges the inclination to perceive Noh as an eternal, genuine embodiment of national identity by revealing (both in a literal and metaphorical sense) the figures in Onibaba as symbolic embodiments of Hiroshima’s distressing modern condition.
With the freedom provided by studios in 1960s Japan, filmmakers like Teshigahara and Shindo explored the post-war uncertainty and shifting identity. The exploration of the concept of self and the interpretation of the world in the context of an unpredictable environment is extensively examined in the films “The Face of Another” and “Onibaba” through the utilization of masks as symbolic representations. With the film ending on a freeze frame of the old lady jumping over the hole, the discontinuous concluding images of Onibaba effectively capture the essence of the Japanese new wave and its engagement with the societal dynamics of the 1960s. These images emphasize the concept of time’s suspended paralysis, rather than the notion of endless flow, so serving as a powerful expression of this cinematic movement’s dialogue with the era.
REFERENCES
Desser, D. (1988). Eros Plus Massacre: An Introduction to the Japanese New Wave Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana UP
McDonald, K. I. (2000). From Book to Screen: Modern Japanese Literature in Film. Armonk: An East Gate Book.
Mellen, J. (1975). Voices from the Japanese Cinema. New York: Liveright.
Lowenstein, A. (2005). Shocking Representation: Historical Trauma, National Cinema and The Modern Horror. Columbia University Press
Richie D., (1990) Japanese Cinema: An Introduction. Oxford University Press
McDonald, K. I. (2006). Reading a Japanese Film. University of Hawai’i Press
