Empire of Passion
愛の亡霊
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Lovers murder a husband and are haunted by him — Oshima's Cannes-winning ghost story of guilt.
A village in northern Kanto, 1895. Seki, the wife of the rickshaw man Gisaburo, is past forty but looks barely thirty; she is nursing a baby son while their daughter, Oshin, is away in service. Toyoji, a young man back from the army, starts calling while Gisaburo is out. One day he rapes Seki as she dozes after feeding the baby. An affair begins in which she forgets that he is twenty-six years younger. Wanting her entirely for himself, Toyoji shaves her pubic hair, a mark her husband could not miss, then tells her that since she can never go back to Gisaburo now, they will have to kill him.
That night they get Gisaburo drunk on shochu, strangle him with a hemp rope and drop his body into an old well in the woods. Seki tells the village he has gone to work in Tokyo. Toyoji takes up a strange habit of gathering fallen leaves and throwing them down the well.
Three years pass. As the Bon festival nears, people start asking why Gisaburo never comes home. Villagers dream of him, and so does the daughter. Then Seki begins to see him herself: a pale, silent ghost drinking by the hearth or standing by his rickshaw. A police inspector, Hotta, starts asking questions. Toyoji kills the young master of the landowner's house, who has seen him at the well. The lovers climb down into the well to move the body; pine needles fall on them and pierce Seki's eyes, and she is blinded. Toyoji resolves to stay with her until death.
When Seki, blind and hounded, shuts herself in the house to die, Toyoji breaks in to reach her, and the police and villagers seize them there. Hung from a tree and beaten, first Toyoji and then Seki cry out that they killed him. Gisaburo's skeleton is raised from the well, the rope still around its neck. A narrator reports, in a line, that the two were executed.
Starring
Kazuko Yoshiyukias Seki
A rickshaw man's wife in her forties, raped by a younger man, then drawn into an affair and a murder that haunt her.
Seki’s story
Seki looks barely thirty though she is past forty, and is nursing a baby son. Toyoji, twenty-six years younger, rapes her as she dozes after feeding the child, and an affair begins. He has her shaved so that her husband, Gisaburo, cannot fail to notice, then tells her they will have to kill him. Reluctant and weeping, she helps him strangle Gisaburo, and tells the village he has gone to work in Tokyo. Three years on, her daughter dreams of him, and Seki starts to see his silent ghost. Pine needles blind her when she and Toyoji climb down the well to move the body. Hounded, she tries to take her own life, and the police seize them both. Hung from a tree and beaten, she cries out that she killed him. She is executed.
Tatsuya Fujias Toyoji
A young man back from the army who forces himself on Seki, pushes her to kill her husband and kills again to hide it.
Toyoji’s story
Toyoji is back from the army and calls on Seki whenever her husband is out. He rapes her, and once they are lovers he wants her entirely: he has her shaved, a mark Gisaburo could not miss, and says they must now kill him. They strangle Gisaburo and drop him down an old well, and afterwards Toyoji keeps gathering fallen leaves to throw in after him. Three years on, he tells Seki he cannot see the ghost that haunts her. He kills the landowner's young master, who has seen him at the well. When Seki is blinded, he resolves to stay with her until death, and when she tries to take her own life he breaks down the door to reach her. Hung from a tree and beaten, he is the first to confess. He is executed.
Takahiro Tamuraas Gisaburo
Seki's husband, a mild rickshaw man who is murdered and comes back as a pale, silent ghost.
Takuzo Kawatanias Inspector Hotta
The policeman sent to look into Gisaburo's disappearance, who closes in on the lovers and beats a confession out of them.
Kenzo Kawarazakias Young master
The educated heir of the landowner's house, who sees Toyoji at the well and is killed for it.
Why it matters
Empire of Passion was Nagisa Oshima's next film after In the Realm of the Senses, and it won him best director at Cannes in 1978. Where the earlier film shut its lovers away in rooms, this one sets them in a village where everyone watches, gossips and dreams, and where the turning seasons seem to testify against them. It is hard to watch in a particular way: the affair begins with a rape that the film treats as the start of Seki's desire, and the woman overpowered first by her lover and then by the police pays the heaviest price. Defending himself in the obscenity case over the book of his previous film, Oshima wrote that he was there out of love for suffering women like Sada and Seki. The film leaves that claim open to test: whether a story can honour a woman's desire while showing it born from violence.