Review #1,060 - Odd Obsession (1959)
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Review #1,060 |
THE SCOOP
Director: Kon Ichikawa
Cast: Machiko Kyô, Ganjirô Nakamura, Junko Kanô, Tatsuya Nakadai
Plot: A man getting on in years sets out to find a way to resurrect his flagging virility.
Genre: Drama
Awards: Won Jury Prize (Cannes). Won 1 Golden Globe - Best Foreign Language Film
Runtime: 107min
Rating: PG for some mature themes.
IN RETROSPECT (Spoilers: NO)
One of the few Kon Ichikawa pictures that
won a major award at an important international festival, Odd Obsession was also one of two films directed by the incredibly
prolific Japanese director in 1959. The
other was Fires on the Plain.
A Cannes Jury Prize winner, tied with
Antonioni's L'Avventura (1960) no
less, but in my view, undeservingly, Odd
Obsession is an adaptation of the novel ‘Kagi’ by Jun’ichiro Tanizaki,
published just three years earlier.
Through the eyes of an outsider, an
intern doctor who is forced into the private lives of a family – husband, wife
and daughter – finds himself hypnotized by the odd, disturbing game of sexual
affairs played by the conniving husband.
The husband believes jealousy can help to
increase his own sexual arousal, so he gets the intern doctor to seduce his
wife. The wife, seemingly a pawn, sees
through her husband's ploy but continues to accept sexual favours from the
doctor, if only to satisfy her husband's ‘odd obsession’. As if that is not disturbing enough, the
narrative adds the element of the daughter who has a love-hate romantic
relationship with the doctor, a relationship her father hopes will progress
into a marriage.
Multi-layered and well-told, Odd Obsession sees Ichikawa's
storytelling nous in good order, but it suffers from an unremarkable ending,
which I will leave you to discover. It's
a case of trying too hard to have full closure when a more open conclusion would
have befitted the film's tone.
In turns semi-erotic and voyeuristic,
Ichikawa’s work here could be considered bold for its time. The sense of sexual tension is palpable, and
the film achieves it without resorting to nudity or sexual scenes. Everything is hinted through precise blocking
and cutting.
Visually, Odd Obsession is interesting.
Shot by the acclaimed Kazuo Miyagawa, who also photographed Ozu’s Floating Weeds in the same year, Odd Obsession’s camerawork exudes both
style and audacity. In the opening
credits, the camera is attached underneath a moving truck; in other scenes, it
slowly cranes down from the roof of a house to reveal a man walking or a car
stopping.
Whether ultimately Odd Obsession could be considered as one of Ichikawa’s best works
remains to be debated. I personally
don’t think so. It is not as thoroughly
engaging as it should be, despite the strength of its material. It is a difficult film to find though, and
worth a look at any opportunity.
Verdict:
A layered semi-erotic narrative about a family with an out-of-sorts husband/father
that is intriguing but finally unremarkable.
GRADE: B
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