Boel Ulfsdotter:
Imamura Shohei’s Insect Woman/Nippon Konchuki (1963)
The eroticisation of a Japanese film

Complete paper presented at NECS 2007 conference in Vienna June, 21-23.

This conference gives me an opportunity to present my research work which focuses on the introduction of the Japanese national cinema in the West between 1950 and 1975. I have looked at the diffusion, exhibition and critical reception of Japanese film in France, Great Britain and the United States, in order to see how the image of this particular national cinema was transposed and reflected outside the screening auditoria in other parts of the world. I basically study archive holdings of film posters, lobby cards, publicity stills, film books and screen novelletas as well as film reviews related to the overseas exhibition of Japanese film, in order to see how these were coded when negotiated in a Western setting. Today I present a case study on the eroticisation of Imamura Shohei’s Insect Woman/Nippon Konchuki (1963) in which I have focused on the expectations purveyed by images presented as publicity material for the film. It’s common knowledge that this type of images should reflect the generic connection between the film stills and the film itself, based on the photographic work of the unit still photographer. Our general understanding of their ‘PV’ or production value furthermore presupposes that the film stills should reflect the imagery on the footage shot by the movie camera, thus indicating who is in the movie and what it looks like. The film company’s publicist subsequently makes a selection of the stills which convey the highest ‘PV’ for publicity purposes. For all we know publicity departments of Japanese film companies have operated according to the same matrix regarding their film product since around 1950.

At first glance, the recurrent reproduction of only one publicity still for Imamura’s Insect Woman in the media may therefore not seem so remarkable and may be considered as merely a means of very focused film promotion. Nevertheless, a consistent publication of one particular publicity still from a certain film, undoubtedly results in the still becoming an even stronger emblem for the film it represents, decidedly guiding the impression of the film among the public. In view of the limited amount of releases of Japanese films in the West, one must therefore consider the possibility that such a measure may result in further implications, where a particular image is seen as confirming and even emphasizing the existing image of a whole national cinema. I argue that this is the case with the publicity image for Insect Woman, which completely disregards the fact that Imamura Shohei was generally considered to be a ‘leftist’ filmmaker, basing his films on a social approach to the subject matter, and consequently critical of the traditional image of ‘things Japanese’. Regardless of the apparent paradox and discrepancy between the image represented by the film still and the social realist subject matter reflected in the film, this particular publicity still kept representing Insect Woman for years in different Western media, thus becoming its emblem. It may therefore be fruitful to try and understand the consequences of such an ambivalent iconography, since Insect Woman hardly presents itself as an isolated case but rather as a symptom of a mistaken identity in relation to Western reception of Japanese film. My argument, that Insect Woman was subject to an eroticisation which essentially misled its introduction in the West due to the repetitive reproduction of a naturalistic publicity still, is confirmed by the apparent realism in the remaining publicity stills from the film’s overseas’ release at the Berlin Film Festival in 1964. This ill-fated graphic eroticisation was subsequently alternately contested by film reviews in various Western media and confirmed by the iconography in two Western film posters for the film.

Early French critical accounts of Insect Woman defines it as a neo-realist film, and presuming that these accounts represent fair plot descriptions of the film, they allow us to label Imamura’s film a neo-realist drama, as we know the genre in the West. This choice of genre definition was further confirmed by Donald Richie in his book Japanese Cinema  from 1972 in which he described Imamura’s style as ‘documentary-like realism’.

The first review of Insect Woman presented to a Western readership was written by the American journalist and writer Mary Evans and published in the Japan Times on November 22, 1963. Considering that Evans’ review was accompanied by the above publicity still, we may take this to be the first instance of its publication in a Western context. Despite its evident realism, Mary Evans still did not label Insect Woman a ‘neo-realist drama’, assuming that she was familiar with the term. Instead, it would seem that Evans chose to present Insect Woman in a rather lyrical, almost innocent setting and from this point of view the choice of illustration may seem logical. From a practical point of view, we cannot know for certain, whether this was Evans’ own choice of illustration or some one else’s, but the point is that it clearly indicates the impact of this particular publicity still early on in the film’s genealogy.

This impact is again ascertained when the Association for the Diffusion of Japanese Films Abroad marketed Insect Woman in the West through its journal UniJapan Film Quarterly in January 1964. The written introduction of the film read differently from Evans’ in that it focussed on the main character’s hard living conditions and the fact that these still did not seem to break her spirit. This unattractive presentation was however accompanied by the same publicity still used in the Japan Times, thus clearly indicating the paradoxical possibility of airing two completely different accounts of Imamura’s film while using the same publicity still to illustrate them. It hardly matters that the review in the Japan Times was read only by a limited amount of Western patrons living in Japan, whereas UniJapan Film Quarterly was a journal published in English and sent to film organisations and institutes, producers, distributors and exhibitors, and newspapers throughout the world. Both readerships first caught sight of the publicity still.

The third occasion of the film’s presentation in Western media was through an un-illustrated review in the New York Times, in connection with the commercial release of Insect Woman in the United States a few months after its first screening in Berlin. The review by A.H. Weiler in fact seems to be the first presentation condoning the French genre description, indicating that Insect Woman should indeed be read as a neo-realist drama. On the other hand, Michel Delahaye in the Cahiers du Cinéma stated that Insect Woman was the best film at the Berlin Film Festival in 1964, based on what he called its ‘Brechtian’ merits. The reproduced publicity stills in the festival report in Cahiers du Cinéma again include the emblematic film still from Insect Woman, enlarged and so dominating the entire double spread under the headline ‘Berliner passion’. The illustration thus matches the one scene from Insect Woman which Delahaye described, and it wasn’t the one of the girl discovering that her mother runs a brothel, nor that of the eternal triangle of man woman lover, but of the primitive and utterly rural scene of a father suckling his daughter’s breast. This presentation of the film also appears strangely paradoxical in relation to Delahaye’s reference to Insect Woman as, I quote, the most ‘Brechtian’ film ever made, end of quote.  No need to say that David Desser’s later inclusion, in 1988, of Imamura Shohei’s Insect Woman among Japan’s new wave cinema further complicated matters as to its genre definition.

Leaving the accounts of the film to one side, how is this emblematized image interpreted in iconographical terms? To the Western connoisseur of Japanese art history the iconography of this particular publicity still could be linked to Japanese shunga - a Japanese term for erotic woodblock prints. The term shunga may be literally translated as ‘picture of spring’, with spring being an euphemism for sex, although it would be enough for most Western observers to define it as ‘Japanese’. Apart from the immediate fact that we see a representation of a Japanese woman and therefore may conclude that this is probably not a publicity still for a Western film, the image reminds us of the conventional tropes of a certain type of Japonist pastoral scenes indicated by the shadow of the trees, the handcrafted baskets, the pattern and line of the woman’s short-sleeved traditional rural clothing and the presumably indigo-blue of the jacket of the man kneeling with his back to the camera. The only jarring factor appears to be the steep camera angle, looking up at the couple and thus elevating them from the ground level.

Whether we make the connection to shunga or not, the young Japanese woman taking pleasure in the intimacy of the situation, reflects a filmic moment more or less iconographically unthinkable in connection with public representation of a Western film on a rural theme, but evidently acceptable in relation to a Japanese film. Ergo, a slice of exoticism, in the form of an effeminated and decorative East, trimmed with a lack of Western decorum. These reflections are based on the iconographical elements in the above film cum publicity still, but we must again ask what they have in common with the above accounts of the film plot and the labelling of Insect Woman as a ‘neo-realist drama’? What is the reason behind the establishment and lingering of such a discrepancy between the subject itself – the film plot – and its public image?

The purpose of my interest in this particular segment of film exhibition policy is partly to explore the extent to which the (Japanese) film industry publicists were depending on an already established image of ‘Japaneseness’ in the West, in terms of graphic exploitation. The favoured publicity still for Imamura’s Insect Woman is an excellent example of this assumption, since a cinemagoer who sees the film only because of what this publicity still seems to be promising, would undoubtedly be disappointed. Had s/he seen any one of the additional publicity stills, as yet more or less unpublished, but presenting the film’s plot and mood far more accurately, the graphic ambivalence vis-à-vis the film plot and correct genre definition would have disappeared, as well as the cinemagoer’s disappointment.

Imamura apparently managed to give his film a very realistic tone, which is perfectly reflected in the ten alternative publicity stills. It therefore seems possible to argue that the development of an inevitable discrepancy between the actual character of Insect Woman and the publicity still which has become its emblem, was considered to be of less importance, than the maintenance of a certain image of Japanese film in the West, in order to sell the product. It is therefore of obvious interest to again ask who is behind the decision to use this publicity still for Insect Woman. It can hardly have been Imamura Shohei himself since the chosen publicity still cannot be said to be representative of the film, nor of his film style. Nor do I believe it was Mary Evans on the event of writing the first review. Instead, I argue that the decision to use this particular publicity still was made by the publicist at the Nikkatsu Film Corporation in Tokyo, blatantly sponging on the traditional Western image of Asian exoticism and ‘Japaneseness’.

Another set of questions regarding the Western marketing of Imamura Shohei’s film Insect Woman refers to Western poster iconography and issues of possible gender exploitation vis-à-vis a certain image of a national cinema.  The Japanese title of Imamura’s film is Nippon Konchuki, which is literally translated as ‘Record of Insect Life in Japan’. However, in connection with the Western introduction of Insect Woman, Imamura’s film had been given Western titles combining the two words ‘woman’ and ‘insect’ (Insect Woman, Femme Insecte, Das Insektenweib). An improbable choice of title by any standards today, and, I would imagine, impossible already by any of the 1960s standards as a title and/or image of a Western neo-realist drama.

Still, none of the German poster designers refrained from illustrating this so called ‘insect woman’ which makes it obvious that both these film posters display clear instances of gender exploitation, and a disrespect for Japanese women in particular, by staging the figures in the posters quite naked, and crawling or huddling in different landscape settings. On closer inspection, we can see that one of the female figures has not been allowed to display any Japanese features at all; whereas the other figure is characterized by strong Japanese facial features, accompanied by claws instead of fingernails. In addition to the women’s (partial) nakedness, these images display an explicit lack of human dignity which has been replaced by overt sexuality through body poses. I have also established that one of the publicity stills has served as copy for one of the German film posters. When comparing the social realistic situation reflected by the film still – the punter’s hand forcing its way through the picture frame towards the girl’s closed thighs (and presumably farther) - the cold-hearted sexploitation of the vulnerable characters in Imamura’s film by the German poster designer becomes even more blatant while at the same time unavoidably underlining the common prejudice invested in Western images of the Other woman from the 1950s until the mid-1970s.

Has this type of Western representation of the Japanese female film character been fostered merely through the choice of film genres distributed in the West, or is the Western representation of the Japanese female movie character a product of a general Western view on womanhood, and thus possibly biased with reference to gender and/or nationality? The issue is further complicated by the fact that David Desser relates to Imamura Shohei as a feminist, I quote: ‘The New Wave director most often thought of as a feminisuto, and even a genuine feminist by some, is Imamura Shohei.’ End of quote.

I would also like to point out that the importance of place has as yet been more or less overlooked in connection with studies of Western reception of non-Western national cinemas, even though studies of the American art house cinema of the 1950s and 1960s indicate that most foreign films were screened in such a context. I therefore suggest that the identification of place is an important parameter when researching the reception of Japanese film in Europe, as well. At the time of its exhibition in Germany in 1964, the exhibitors in question would presumably have had both the publicity stills and the two German film posters for Insect Woman at their disposal for publicity purposes. Maybe the German art house theatres had also followed the American trend and turned into so called adult or nudie theatres by then. Such a development would partly explain the iconography in the German film posters. If so, they would hardly have displayed all eleven film stills, instead, it seems most likely that the film still on display would have been the emblematic one, together with at least one of the film posters. However, I again believe that the consequence of such a display would have created an unsettling impression on a potential female art house habitué; a highly unsatisfactory result since the feminist aspect conveyed by Imamura Shohei in this film, would probably have been of considerable interest to a female cinemagoer. Instead, I suggest that the tantalizing quality of the iconography of the emblematic publicity still, as well as the German film posters was meant to encourage the mainstream heterosexual male cinemagoer to go see the film, irrespective of the film’s actual style and plot. Based on this dichotomy, and the above discussion, we may thus conclude that the marketing of Imamura Shohei’s film Insect Woman in the West was undertaken without an immediate interest in the film itself.