Profound Desires of the Gods (1968)

An engineer from Tokyo arrives on a drought-ridden tropical island to drill a well to power a nearby sugar mill. He meets the inbred Futori family, hated by the locals for breaking religious customs.

Director:

Shôhei Imamura

Writers:

Keiji Hasebe, Shôhei Imamura

Stars:

Rentarô Mikuni, Chôichirô Kawarasaki, Hideko Okiyama

5 wins.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Rentarô Mikuni	...	Nekichi Futori / the chained son
Chôichirô Kawarasaki	...	Kametaro Futori / the backward son
Hideko Okiyama	...	Toriko Futori / the retarded daughter
Kanjûrô Arashi	...	Yamamori Futor / the patriarch
Yasuko Matsui	...	Uma Futori / the priestess daughter
Yoshi Katô	...	Ritsugen Ryu
Izumi Hara	...	Unari Ryu
Jun Hamamura
Kazuo Kitamura	...	Kariya / Engineer
Tatsu Nakamura
Susumu Mizushima
Hôsei Komatsu
Chikako Hosokawa
Yasuhiko Ishizu
Kazuhiko Hasegawa

Storyline

The Tokyo engineer Kariya arrives on a primitive tropical island to drill a well to provide water for the sugar mill. He is assisted on the island by Kametaro, from the inbred Futori family. Nekichi Futori is chained in a pit that he has to dig, in order to appease the gods for breaking island customs. Nekichi is in love with his sister Uma, who is a shaman priestess at the sacred shrine, that contains the only good water close to the mill. She is also the mistress of Ryu, the manager of the mill. The patriarch of the Futori family tries to get the engineer to marry his retarded daughter Toriko.

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Plot Keywords:

father daughter incest | brother sister incest | fishing | snake | singing | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Trivia

Official submission of Japan for the 'Best Foreign Language Film' category of the 42nd Academy Awards in 1970.

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Connections

Featured in Cinéma, de notre temps: Shohei Imamura - Le libre penseur (1995)

User Reviews

meandering, centreless piece with hints of genius

Profound Desires of the Gods, sometimes referred to as Imamura's overlooked epic, is an ambitious undertaking. Running at a daunting 173 minutes, it is ostensibly the tale of one inbred Ryukyu family's (the Futoris) attempts to regain lost social status. They do this by digging a pit to bury a huge boulder, and by seducing a mainland engineer with the feral, sexually-charged wild-child daughter. On another level, the film interrogates issues of modernity versus tradition, religious hypocrisy, and Japan's troubled relations with the outside world.

The film's successes are its luscious landscape, evocative production design of heathen and pagan rituals and artifacts, and portrayal of suppressed, taboo desires bursting to the fore. The narrative wanders and explores various tangents that can challenge the attention. This is filmmaking for cinema, and the gorgeous golden beaches and turquoise oceans had me longing to see this on the big screen. A murder by masked men at the end is also visually compelling. This film is interesting in bits, and flashes of genius occasionally show themselves, but the lack of coherence, repetition in the storyline, and outright dud moments (the heavenly vision of the departed patriarch), make this a problematic addition to the Imamura oeuvre. It hints at the great film that this project could have become, a realization of the potential of the vision, rather than the vision itself. Sometimes amazing, sometimes disappointing, this is one to watch and argue over.

Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

22 July 1970 (USA)

Also Known As:

Deep Desire of Gods

Filming Locations:

Ishigaki-jima, Ryukyu Islands, Japan

Company Credits

Production Co:

Nikkatsu

Technical Specs

Runtime:

173 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1