Profound Desires of the Gods

Kamigami no Fukaki Yokubou; drama, Japan, 1968; D: Shohei Imamura, S: Kazuo Kitamura, Rentaro Mikuni, Yasuko Matsui, Hideko Okiyama, Kanjuro Arashi

On the Japanese Kurage island, the Futoris are the oldest family, but have now degenerated due to incest. After fisherman Nekichi Futori returned from war, his wife died, so he became deviant, used explosives to catch fish, and had sex with his sister Uma, a noro. When a giant rock fell on a source of water, the people thought it is a punishment from the gods, and the Futoris were thus shunned: Nekichi was chained to his leg, having been ordered by leader Ryu to excavate the rock until it releases the spring again. Nekichi's father Yamamori is also his grandfather, since the latter had sex with his own daughter. When the married Tokyo enigneer Kariya arrives to the island to drill a well for a future sugar plantation, Nekichi's mentally disabled daughter Toriko seduces Kariya, who abandons his duties and marries her. Kametaro, Nekichi's son, is ordered to bring the pregnant Toriko to an abortion clinic, but the girl simply jumps off the ship and swims back to the island. When a lucrative tourist investment appears, Ryu begs Nekichi to abandon the rock drilling and sell his estate, but Nekichi refuses. Ryu tries to blackmail Uma into lying to the people that the gods wish for Nekichi to be punished, but Ryu dies from a stroke. The people think that Nekichi killed him and thus kill him while he fled in a boat with Uma. Kariya returns to his Tokyo wife while the saddened Toriko disappears.

Shohei Imamura's peculiar allegorical movie has several problems—with a running time of 3 hours, it is somewhat overlong; its skewed themes are overburdened due to three different directions taken, one of which revolves around the bizarre notion that love can overcome every obstacle, even incest (!)—and yet, it has some sort of direct honesty while presenting the director's fascination with exploring the "margins of society" which were usually avoided in cinema of his era. By setting the story on the fictional island, Imamura presents two different approaches at finding happiness in life: the rational, which takes a "secure" backtrack (embodied in engineer Kariya, an intellectual who finds love in Toriko, but abandons her to return to his old routine and comfortable Tokyo wife), and the irrational, which embraces ones own passion and goes with it, regardless of all the opposition or bitter challenges (embodied in the "wild" fisherman Nekichi who never abandons his forbidden love with his sister Uma). Imamura displayes his fascinating philosophy that some of fundamental truths in life can only be found through the lower class, which is passionate, but alive, as opposed to the upper class, which is sophisticated, but dead.

"Profound Desires of the Gods" abounds with bizarre, grotesque moments juxtaposed to calm, poetic images of the sea and the island nature: the opening is already comical, where (grand)father Yamamori scolds Nekichi for having an affair with his own sister, but Nekichi replies that Yamamori had sex with his own daughter. Grandfather answers with: "Ushi's husband rejected her, so I loved her". In another, the camera takes a bird's-eye view of a room, but only has the hanging chandelier with a lizard on it in focus, while a naked Uma is "conveniently" out of focus, lying on the ground, while Ryu is on her, pushing her to follow his orders. There is also a surprisingly emotional sequence where Kariya just promised to the aroused girl Toriko that he will meet her tomorrow at the beach to get rid of her, but is amazed when he hears from her brother that she is lying there for two days, will not eat nor talk to anyone until he shows up—so Kariya shows up, and they share a passionate kiss. The subplot involving superstitious traditions of the vilagers leads to a dead end, whereas the ending kind of "lost" Kariya as the protagonist, meaning that Imamura's tight "Vengeance is Mine" is still superior, yet the film has some unique personality and vivid spirit that makes it stick even today.

Grade:++