Akio Jissoji: The Buddhist Trilogy

Japanese director Akio Jissoji (1937-2006) had a bifurcated career, making highly commercial sci-fi movies and TV programs (including the popular Ultraman) while also directing experimental, sexually-explicit dramas for Japan’s Art Theatre Guild, as part of the so-called Japanese New Wave of the 1960s and ‘70s. The best-known are the three collaborations with writer Toshiro Ishido known as the "Buddhist trilogy," so called because they obliquely reflect on aspects of Buddhist thought. This Transient Life (1970) is about siblings involved in an incestuous relationship and a monk who becomes the brother’s collaborator to make a statue of Buddha while also having feelings for the sister. Mandara (1971), the only film in color, concerns college students who are drawn into a cult that practices extreme sexual activities, including rape. And Poem (1972) is about a servant whose spiritual progress is upended when his teacher proposes to sell their serene mountain estate to greedy profiteers. All three films showcase bravura camerawork, mixing long tracking shots with sharp edits and surrealist imagery, and they feature music scores that combine modernist instrumentals with classical excerpts and religious chants. All are presented in excellent transfers (Poem in both the theatrical version and a longer director’s cut), and each film features enlightening introductions and commentaries by film scholar David Desser. A bonus fourth disc contains Jissoji’s It Was a Faint Dream (1974), a more conventionally shot drama about a woman who flees libertine court life to become a nun. Also included is a 60-page illustrated book. While the provocative subject matter and abrasive style of these films will hardly be to all tastes, they do represent significant contributions to an important movement in Japanese cinema. Recommended for more adventurous collections. (F. Swietek)