February 8–15, 2001

movie shorts

Taboo

The first film by Nagisa Oshima (In the Realm of the Senses ) since his 1996 stroke, Taboo (Gohatto ) is a surprisingly subdued affair, given that it’s set among the samurai of the 19th century. In fact, it’s set mostly within the walls of their training facility, a militaristic enclave whose delicate order is disrupted by the arrival of Kano (Ryuhei Matsuda), a soft-faced swordsman whose beauty soon beguiles nearly every man in the compound. As first his relationship with Tashiro (Tadanobu Asano) is a secret, but it gradually becomes clear that everyone suspects them, just as it becomes clear that Kano’s been spreading his affections around. The samurais’ supposition of homosexuality begins to seem increasingly absurd as more and more of them fall under Kano’s spell, but that doesn’t prevent the confusion sown by his presence from spreading. Taboo certainly has a novel subject, but the film seems muted and jumbled; a subplot involving a feud with a rival militia is introduced and abandoned, and despite repeated mentions, Tashiro disappears from the screen for over an hour, for no apparent reason. The film’s exact purpose remains obscure.

—Sam Adams