Pigs and Battleships
Directed by Shohei Imamura
Written by Hisashi Yamanouchi and Gisashi Yamouchi from a novel by Kazu Otsuka
1961/Japan
Nikkatsu
First viewing/Netflix rental
[box] “Mac, Phase: everyone here is of the we-don’t-use-real-names-here mentality, so most of the time I feel like a really pilled up Snow White rolling around in the hood with seven drug-dealing dwarves—which, I don’t know… these things are never really as fun as they sound like they’d be.” ― Kris Kidd[/box]
In Imamura’s vision of Post-War Japan, the people are pigs feeding on the U.S. military.
Japanese low life living in the vicinity of a U.S. naval base have figured out a way to make it pay. A Chinese entrepreneur has started a pig farm based on refuse from the base that he corruptly procures for a pittance. Others live off a thriving prostitution racket.
Kinta is a young hoodlum who is working his way up from the bottom as a flunky on the pig farm. He and girlfriend Haruko are expecting their first child. She wants him to leave with her to get a factory job in another town. He resists.
The movie basically depicts the depraved existence of the gangsters. When Haruko can’t get Kinta to change his ways, she gets revenge by a tentative move into the prostitution racket. This doesn’t work out so well. Kinta eventually discovers that his number one use to the gang is as a fall guy.
This is a strikingly-shot, savage social commentary. I can see the reasons why it is highly rated. Imamura may not be for me. I don’t have a lot of time for misanthropes.
