The ceremony

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Movie
German title The ceremony
Original title Gishiki
儀式
Country of production Japan
original language Japanese
Publishing year 1971
length 123 minutes
Rod
Director Nagisa Ōshima
script Takashi Tamura ,
Mamoru Sasaki ,
Nagisa Ōshima
music Tōru Takemitsu
camera Toichiro Narushima
cut Keiichiro Uraoka
occupation

The ceremony is a Japanese feature film written and directed by Nagisa Ōshima in 1971 . In it, the director accuses the conservative, authoritarian tradition of perpetuating the character that Japanese society retained in the post-war period with the economic boom. That makes it impossible for the younger generation to realize their own life plans. At the center of the story is a widespread upper-class family whose ceremonies , a more fitting translation of the original Japanese title 儀式 , Gishiki , Ōshima sarcastically attacks. The dramaturgically and visually strictly composed work received a lot in Japan, but hardly any attention in German-speaking countries.

action

Masuo and his relative Ritsuko, whom he has not seen for ten years, received a telegram from their relative Terumichi in 1971. After his grandfather's death, he refuses to take over as head of the Sakurada family and announces that he will die on a remote island. The film flashes back to 1947, when Masuo, then ten years old, was repatriated to Japan with his mother from Manchuria, which was again ruled by China , after the lost war . His father killed himself after the emperor surrendered and renounced his divinity. The most important companions during his childhood now are the children Terumichi, Ritsuko and Tadashi, who are part of the Sakurada family in not very clear relationships. Belonging to the upper class of society, the family - wives, mistresses, in-laws and grandchildren - is directed by the patriarchal grandfather. This prescribes the path as the future head of the family to Masuo, the eldest of his male descendants.

There are noticeable gaps in the family; numerous fathers and mothers are missing. While Uncle Isamu ideologically adheres to the Stalinist line of communists, Tadashi's father Susumu has spent years in Chinese custody for war crimes and is a broken, silent man. In 1952, after the death of his mother and now a young man, Masuo feels affection for Ritsuko's sensual mother Satsuko. But the grandfather prevents a looming relationship and leaves Satsuko to the young Terumichi, who has his first erotic experiences with her. Masuo's approach to Ritsuko in 1956 also fails because the more agile Terumichi anticipates him and takes Ritsuko as his partner. Satsuko is then found impaled with a dagger; although it is said that she killed herself, Masuo speculates that her grandfather murdered her. Masuo experienced the greatest humiliation in 1960 when the family forcibly married him to a woman who did not show up for the wedding. The grandfather nevertheless insists that the ceremony be carried out as planned, and Masuo must perform all rites alongside an imaginary bride. Tadashi has since become a right-wing extremist and is run over by a car. In 1971, after Terumichi's death message became known, major players in the company suggested Masuo take over the management of the family business. He arrives on the island with Ritsuko and they discover that Terumichi actually killed himself. Masuo, who was hoping that Ritsuko could marry him now, has to watch as she lies down with Terumichi and also kills herself. He remains as the last survivor of the family.

Meaning and style

Image of post-war society in Japan

Family gatherings at ceremonial weddings and funerals are of great importance in Japanese culture. The ceremonies, each depicted in a flashback, take place in years that are of increased importance for the fate of Japan. This has often led to the interpretation that the family drama reflects the history of Japan after 1945. The first section falls in 1947 when the new constitution came into force; The US occupation ended in 1952, Japan and the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations in 1956 , and in 1960 Japan and the United States renewed their security pact . Although the film only indirectly refers to these key points, the country's post-war history is present as a background. The old imperial form of society continues to operate even after Japan's defeat in the war and is the basis of the grandfather's authority over the family. Reinstated as a civil servant in 1947, he ignored the change in time. This restoration of old structures prevents the emergence of a real democratic society. Against this context stands the symbolic act of little Terumichi, who in 1947 suddenly sprayed a disinfectant over the seated family in order to “clean Japan”. To Uncle Isamu, the Stalinist , Ōshima shows that the communist party is not an alternative of value.

Family dependencies

Sketch of a setting. The strictly symmetrical composition emphasizes the central position in the family claimed by the grandfather.

Because the film only reproduces the events incompletely and does not explain the motives for the murders and suicides, the plot loses importance in relation to the family structure. Ōshima does not reveal all ramifications of the family tree; Uncle Isamu's claim that the grandfather is the secret father of all Sakurada children is never contradicted. With their grandfather's incestuous relationships, this wealthy family is failing morally just like the lower-class family in Ōshima's earlier film The Boy . "The director sees in the incidence of incest among these people infringement of the intellectual autonomy of the individual." He dealt with it , "the Japanese theme par excellence. The futile struggle of contemporary demands and claims against the tyranny solidified forms, customs and structures" During the Grandfather speaks of Masuo's obligation to the family, the strict rules of succession find visual expression in the tracking shot, which leads from a close-up of Grandfather's face to a close-up of Masuo's. Tradition sees family relationships as the only determining factor in Masuo's person. Ōshima, however, gives Masuo a greater meaning, as Masuo's voice occasionally comments on the event, and he becomes a central quasi-narrator whose role goes beyond that of a mere protagonist. Masuo always stays on the sidelines of family events and is always absent when the loved ones die. The composition of the images during the ceremonies emphasizes the grandfather's authority: he occupies the middle, while the other family members are lined up to the left and right of him. This symmetry is at odds with the existing conflicts among loved ones. Where, outside of the ceremonies, authority crumbles or protagonists defy their laws, the image compositions become asymmetrical. Although Ōshima is based on the model of Japanese family films as shaped by Yasujiro Ozu , said Tessier (1973), the director refuses to inherit this legacy, just as Terumichi refuses to move up to the top of the Sakurada family. Instead, he introduces the imaginary, as "great eruptions of a lively conscience, or in other words: surrealism ." The depiction of a disintegrating family of the upper class also drew a comparison with The Rules of the Game (1939).

Attempted escape

According to Desser (1988), the film deconstructs the theatrical quality of rituals and how the ruling class combines religious and political ideology. With each subsequent ceremony, the family becomes more and more fragmented. Burch (1979) also considered the long sequence of ceremonies to be profoundly theatrical: “This is a paralyzing, vicious theater (...) It is the theater of repressive fathers, a theater of lies that can only know one credibly liberating gesture: that of ritual suicide. “ The grandfather's adherence to his principles and the absolutely fixed rituals leads him to a denial of reality. The bride destined for Masuo is believed to embody the ideal of the pure Japanese woman, but her absence suggests that this ideal woman never existed. The camera wanders through the hall, along the tables and the wedding guests, looking in vain for her, and through the blurring of the background points to the empty space next to the groom. The ritual order has been emptied of its original meaning and death becomes the "fascination of doom" . Terumichi's suicide has often been understood as an allusion to Ōshima at the end of the life of the writer Yukio Mishima . But the director said that when Mishima killed himself, the script would have been finished and filming had not yet started. The incident was a "big shock" for him . In the end of the film, Masuo is left alone as a member of a generation that refuses to continue. For Turim (1998), this total, violent rejection is the social criticism of the work.

Ōshima's fears about the Japanese soul

Like almost all of his previous works, Ōshima conceived The Ceremony as a revolt against Japanese society, which he perceived as sick. He asked them to take stock after 25 years after the war. “In 'The Ceremony' I tried to look at the entirety of my existence and my feelings during all the years after the war in the 1971 present.” The film asks whether post-war society has new values ​​instead of militarism and nationalism that are strong enough to hold their own against the old ones. Ōshima uses a recurring motif for the emotions of the generation that sought to realize new values. While fleeing in Manchuria, Masao and his mother had to leave behind a little brother whom they had buried and whom Masao could still hear sobbing afterwards; in Japan he often holds his ear to the earth and listens, "signs of not forgetting committed inhumanity and of not silencing the whimpering lament" . As an adult, he puts the deceased Tadashi out of his coffin and forces himself into it. As shima allegorically suggests, the young generation has been buried alive; its members are living dead in the family system. This weighs down on the members through the burden of its rules and concepts of honor and stifles the beginnings of individual realization, liberation and rebellion.

It seemed to him, said Ōshima, that during ceremonies the Japanese's soul was stirred up in an unusual, delicate way. The peculiarities of the Japanese soul were revealed in ceremonies. Militarism and xenophobic nationalism , which one rejects logically and emotionally in everyday life, could, in unusual situations, seize this soul in a disturbing, simple way. In addition, Ōshima wanted to address the economic recovery of Japan, because he suspected his country of attempting to reoccupy neighboring states. "I have a feeling that if we don't solve the secret of the Japanese soul, the secret of the Japanese who live in a hurry and want to die in a hurry, Japan will soon be led to war again." 25 years later, Ōshima told in after a conversation that after the ceremony he lost the belief that he could bring about social change with films.

Contemporary criticism

Ōshima's independent manufacturing company Sozosha made The Ceremony and had it loaned through the ATG in Japan. There the film ran on July 5, 1971 in the cinema, was a success and was awarded the Kinema Jumpo Prize in the same year . The film had its German premiere on May 10, 1972 on ARD . Paula Linhart reviewed for the film service : “The film visitor should forego the intellectual instinct to clear up all hidden references and encodings and to 'understand' the strange in our sense. The truth of this testimony to reality that is becoming more transparent is revealed to our attention most directly through the imaginary power of her images, which in ever new moments sheds light on their secret meaning, poetry and mourning, despotism and violence that come to life. How hurt feelings become visible under the cover of aweful attention to beings, things and actions and how passive tolerance and active resistance are interlocked, reveals the art of extraordinary directing. ” In a short review, Die Zeit rated it as “ a film that is beneath its ritualized beauty seems to explode. "

The plant in France enjoyed a wider reception than in Germany. In L'Avant-Scène Cinéma , Max Tessier said that as a cinematic balance sheet and a kind of first testament of Ōshima, the ceremony was definitely the most perfect “consciousness puzzle” that the filmmaker had managed to date. In none of the previous works, as remarkable as they are, did he achieve this perfection. What makes the film unique is that it is both completely concrete and completely abstract. “A self-portrait breaking out of its author, a flawless sketch of a reawakening national and questioning conscience, or simply a family painting, 'The Ceremony' is definitely the most beautiful, most desperate and most authentic song of an author who reaches the extreme point of the echo of an inner . has come resonance " In Le Canard enchaîné the verdict was: " This beautiful Japanese film is not as big a public place as the godfather . It is aimed at those who are curious about extraordinary cinema. That is the case here in every way. […] A very beautiful film that our western minds have some trouble to grasp before we are seduced and fascinated. ” The review by Nouvel Observateur said: “ A long and slow work that one would like to see again for One because it remains a bit puzzling, included in its ritual, and the other because it exerts a fascination: through its formal beauty, the rhythm of the narrative, through the alternation between measured solemnity and violence. Certainly one of the most important oeuvres of contemporary Japanese cinema and for us a revelation, one more reason to consider Ōshima to be a great filmmaker. ” Le Monde praised: “ Some scenes, such as the wedding that was celebrated in the absence of the bride, become purer with the simplest means Poetry. But this poetry is always rich in meaning. An inner light illuminates the ceremony. Behind these rituals and dramas, the fearful voice of Nagisa shima can be heard incessantly. "

Film historical evaluations

The film historian Ulrich Gregor (1978) pointed out the fragmentation of the work in reflections and memories, which are as complicated as the family relationships: “Oshima's art consists in the fact that he nevertheless crystallizes out an intuitively clearly understandable image.” This he “ draws penetrating precision, with a tendency towards the grotesque, towards pathos, towards macabre exaggeration, which is, however, tamed by the strict composition of the film; these rules the art work as well as the drama. " Similar was Burch (1979) in his book about the form and content of Japanese cinema believes the textual depth of the diegesis of the film is the most substantial, the Ōshima have ever achieved since characters and actions would have many figurative meanings. For Kirihara (1985) Die Zeremonie offers “Scenes and single images of gripping beauty (...) the magnificence of images impresses as much as the family relationships are frightening.” The film does not allow a simplistic interpretation as a family saga or as the history of post-war Japan. He combines the strands of a personal search for identity, a private melodrama, national history and a rich visual fabric along which explorations are drawn without even one of them leading to a conclusion. The rituals serve as a starting point for a thorough exploration of a peculiar nation, and Oshima's genius lies in not breaking them off at the end of the film. Jacoby (2008) cited The Ceremony as the most self-assured example of Ōshima's approach to combining different styles in the same film. Each figure in the story is not only rounded, but embodies a facet of Japanese society. The melodrama increases the emotional involvement of the viewer, while the structural formality and overt symbolism encourage a more detached, analytical reading.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Joan Mellen: The waves at Genji's door . New York 1976, cit. in: Friends of the Deutsche Kinemathek (ed.): Films from Japan , 1993, ISBN 3-927876-08-9 , p. 259
  2. ^ Maureen Turim: The Films of Nagisa Oshima . University of California Press, Berkeley 1998, ISBN 0-520-20665-7 , p. 112; Donald Richie: A hundred years of Japanese film . Kodansha International, Tokyo 2001, ISBN 4-7700-2682-X , p. 200; Mellen 1976
  3. ↑ Donald Kirihara: The Ceremony . In: Frank N. Magill (Ed.): Magill's survey of cinema. Foreign language films. Volume 2. Salem Press, Englewood Cliffs NJ, 1985, ISBN 0-89356-245-9 , pp. 505-506
  4. ↑ a b Hideo Osabe: A portrait of post-war Japan , quoted in. in: Friends of the Deutsche Kinemathek (ed.): Films from Japan , 1993, ISBN 3-927876-08-9 , pp. 261-262
  5. ↑ a b c d Paula Linhart: The ceremony . In: film-dienst , No. 18/1973
  6. ↑ Turim 1998, p. 114
  7. ↑ Kirihara 1985, p. 505
  8. ↑ Turim 1998, pp. 113-114
  9. ↑ Kirihara 1985, p. 505
  10. ↑ a b Die Zeit , No. 18/1972: Film tips .
  11. ↑ Turim 1998, p. 113
  12. ↑ Turim 1998, p. 109
  13. ^ Robert Benayoun in Le Point , October 2, 1972, cited above. in: L'Avant-Scène Cinéma , No. 136, May 1973, p. 41
  14. ↑ Turim 1998, p. 118
  15. ↑ Kirihara 1985, p. 506
  16. ↑ Turim 1998, pp. 119-120
  17. ^ A b Max Tessier: Le plain-chant de la consience In: L'Avant-Scène Cinéma , No. 136, May 1973, p. 7
  18. ↑ Louis Seguin in Le Quinzaine Littéraire , October 16, 1972, cited above. in: L'Avant-Scène Cinéma , No. 136, May 1973, p. 41
  19. ↑ David Desser: Eros plus Massacre. An introduction to Japanese New Wave Cinema Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1988, ISBN 0-253-20469-0 , pp. 187-188
  20. ↑ a b c Noël Burch: To the distant observer. Form and meaning in the Japanese cinema. University of California Press, Berkeley 1979, ISBN 0-520-03877-0 , p. 342
  21. ^ A b c Ulrich Gregor: History of the film. Volume 4. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1978, ISBN 3-499-16294-6 , p. 500
  22. ↑ Turim 1998, p. 121
  23. ↑ Turim 1998, p. 121
  24. ↑ a b Nagisa Oshima: About the creation of thoughts while turning . Quoted in: Friends of the Deutsche Kinemathek (ed.): Films from Japan , 1993, ISBN 3-927876-08-9 , S: 264
  25. ↑ Turim 1998, p. 123
  26. ↑ a b Nagisa Oshima: Pourquoi la Cérémonie? In: L'Avant-Scène Cinéma , No. 136, May 1973, p. 11
  27. ↑ Mellen 1976; Turim 1998, p. 116
  28. ^ Nagisa Ōshima in conversation with Shomingeki , No. 2 from summer 1996: Social contradictions and cinema
  29. ↑ Kirihara 1985, p. 504
  30. ↑ The ceremony. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  31. ↑ Michel Duran in Le Canard Enchaîné , November 1, 1972, cited above. in: L'Avant-Scène Cinéma , No. 136, May 1973, p. 41
  32. ↑ Michel-Claude Cluny in Le Nouvel Observateur , November 29, 1972, cited above. in: L'Avant-Scène Cinéma , No. 136, May 1973, pp. 41-42
  33. ↑ Jean de Baroncelli in Le Monde , October 21, 1972, cited above. in: L'Avant-Scène Cinéma , No. 136, May 1973, p. 41
  34. ↑ Kirihara 1985, p. 506
  35. ↑ Alexander Jacoby: A critical handbook of Japanese film directors . Stone Bridge Press, Berkeley 2008, ISBN 978-1-933330-53-2 , p. 241
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on July 10, 2010 .