Taboo
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Movie Reviews of Taboo
Movie Review: Amazing
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie is absolutely superb. The acting is amazing (I am a big fan of Beat Takeshi and he's genius in every movie he's in) and it's a work of art within itself. It has the feeling of a beautiful Japanese watercolor with flowing designs and fantastic scenes. Every scene is filled with elegance and careful attention to detail. The directing is more than superb and just the mere thought of this film makes me catch my breath.Movie Review: Captivating
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a really interesting film that captivates your attention from the beginging. The dramatic actions of the characters speak for the movie itself. It's written narraration was a bit choppy but that did not bother me since I was to engrossed with seeing what would happen next. And the ending.....well, see for yourself! :)Movie Review: unique
Summary: 5 Stars
No surprise. I new the film,I had appreciated it a long time ago, but wanted it in my library.It remains a unique production:such a delicate subject handled with a fine craft.Movie Review: High quality
Summary: 5 Stars
a product not available in Australia, bought at a reasonable price from Amazon and in perfect condition ---- thanksMovie Review: A Subtle, Unsettling, Beautiful Film By Nagisa Oshima
Summary: 4 Stars
"A gorgeously filmed study of homosexual lust" wrote one reviewer, and dumber words by a film critic have yet to be written. Taboo is a meditative study, broken by bouts of intense but not flashy sword combat, of what happens when a disruptive element enters the closed, hyper-macho world of a military unit.
It's Kyoto in 1865. The old social and economic order imposed on Japan by the Tokugawa shogunate is slowly atrophying. The Shunsen-gumi is an elite samurai unit, one of several, whose job it is to maintain order for the shogun. Recruitment has been difficult, and now candidates are accepted, after rigorous trials, from the merchant class. The troop is ruled by rigid hierarchy, a code of conduct which is unforgiving and a demand for loyalty which cannot be questioned. The troop's captain is Toshizo Hijikata (Beat Takeshi); his lieutenant is Soji Okita (Shinji Takeda).
Sozaburo Kano (Ryuhei Matsuda) is the 18-year-old son of a wealthy merchant whose family at one time had been samurai. He proves to be an outstanding candidate in sword combat and is accepted, along with one other, Hyozo Tashiro (Tadanobu Asano). Kano is, no other word will do, beautiful, with a pale, oval face, limpid eyes and full, cupid lips. He is not effeminate, but he is a feminine dream some men will lust for. He also is without apparent emotion. He perhaps is aware of the effect he has, and he is passive in the face of the sexual tension he creates. Passion among men in the military is as old, or older, as the Egyptian charioteers, the Greek hoplites, down to modern armies. The samurai accepted this as a fact of life, something without consequence as long as discipline, order and duty prevail. Kano's feminine beauty and his passivity create tensions among this cloistered group of warriors, who have no wars to fight. This leads to ambiguous actions, assumptions and death.
The film serves as a cool commentary on the relationships among these men, from the two samurai who profess their love directly to Kano and implore him to let them have him, to Beat Takeshi's Captain Hijikata, who is wise and a little bemused by Kano. Hijikata may not, as he puts it, "be that way," but he finds that he and the other officers are a little more gentle with Kano than they might be with others. Kano himself, in most regards, does not react to those who want him carnally. When he allows himself to be used once, he might as well have been in another room for all the response he gives. If he doesn't react to others' lust, neither does he seem moved by killing or death. Ordered to behead in a ritual execution a samurai who broke the code of behavior, Kano does so without hesitation and as efficiently as if he were butchering a pig.
What motivates Kano? We are never sure. At the end of the movie, when Kano is ordered by his superiors to fight and kill the fellow samurai who has been judged a murderer, we find ourselves with doubts, just as Captain Hijikata realizes he has doubts. Perhaps it's as simple as the answer Kano gave to an officer who asked him, "Why does a rich man's son join the militia?" Kano answered, "To have the right to kill."
Beat Takeshi does an excellent job as the captain of the troop. He brings a subtle glimpse of comedy now and then to the role, but now and then also a questioning look at Kano. As Takeshi Kitano he has written and directed any number of hard-boiled, macho yakuza movies. His casting is effective and unusual. Roger Ebert wrote, "Imagine John Wayne in "Red River," with a stirring beneath his chaps every time he looks at Montgomery Clift." This a great image but it doesn't convey the subtleties of the situation. The movie wouldn't work, however, without Ryuhei Matsuda. He looks at times like an Utamaro print. What is surprising is that he was just 15 when Nagisa Oshima cast him in the the part; it was his first acting role.
Oshima, who directed that other beautiful and perverse movie, In the Realm of the Senses, has created a film which is elegant and a feast for the eye. It sets it's own, deliberate pace. It's wonderfully photographed, whether in winter or in spring, whether in the streets of Kyoto or in the barracks of the troop. This may not be a movie for everyone, but if you approach it with an open mind -- and not as a "gorgeously filmed study of homosexual lust" -- I think you'll be rewarded.
The DVD picture is excellent. There are no significant extras.