The Man Who Left His Will On Film

For me The Man Who Left His Will On Film (1970) is Japanese New Wave director Nagisa Oshima's at his most oblique. I have to say I much prefer the film before, Boy, and the film that followed, The Ceremony. The cold, intellectual films of the 60s generally try my patience. It seems to be some sort of personal reaction to the politics of the day. It is an exercise in intellectual theory-repetitions of events with slight changes as well as excessive use of political sloganeering by the students in the film group, and Oshima presents a troubling sexuality throughout the film-forced sex and rape. The film didn't really start to engage me until the last 30 minutes or so. That being said there are some arresting images such as Endo, who clashed with Motoki (Kazuo Goto) over the camera, lying in a pool of blood after his suicide leap, the upside down road from Yasuko's (Emiko Iwasaki), Endo's girlfriend and fellow club member, perspective in the car, and the scene where Yasuko undresses and uses her body as a screen for Endo's testimonial film footage that has been left behind in the salvaged camera. A curious experiment in formal film-making, but not much of an entertainment.