Oshima Nagisa dies at 80

[bi_janus]

The remarkable film director Oshima Nagisa has died near Tokyo. In his 1999 film Taboo, he dealt with the strong current of homoeroticism present in training centers for young samurai during the Shogunate. I must say that the most beautiful male film actor I have seen is Matsuda Ryuhei, playing one of the trainees. Taboo was in some ways a follow-up to his sensational In the Realm of the Senses. His obit in the Times calls him an iconoclast, and he was all of that in the culture of Japanese film from the late fifties onward.

If you can find Taboo, take a look, although the subtitles are poorly done.