Nagisa Oshima: Why This Japanese Cinema Rebel Still Matters

When you think of Japanese cinema giants, names like Akira Kurosawa and Yasujirō Ozu probably come to mind first. But there's another filmmaker who deserves equal recognition – one who spent his career tearing down everything those masters built up. Nagisa Oshima wasn't interested in beautiful compositions or humanistic stories. He wanted to shake audiences awake, challenge authority, and use cinema as a weapon against complacency.

Born in 1932, Oshima came of age during Japan's most turbulent decades. His filmmaking career began just as the country was grappling with its post-war identity, student protests were erupting across universities, and traditional values were clashing head-on with Western influence. This wasn't just background noise for Oshima – it was the very fuel that powered his revolutionary approach to cinema.

Breaking Free from the Studio System

The late 1950s Japanese film industry was a well-oiled machine. Major studios like Shochiku had their house styles, their reliable directors, and their predictable formulas. Oshima walked straight into this system and immediately started causing trouble.

His early films like THE CATCH refused to play by the rules. Based on a Kenzaburō Ōe story about a young black American pilot captured by Japanese villagers during WWII, the film tackled racism and wartime trauma with an unflinching eye. This wasn't the kind of safe, exportable cinema the studios preferred.

By 1960, Oshima had had enough of studio interference. After Shochiku pulled his film "Night and Fog in Japan" from cinemas for being too politically provocative, he walked away from the security of studio employment. In 1965, he founded his own production company, Sozosha, determined to make films on his own terms.

This move wasn't just career suicide – it was a declaration of independence that would inspire countless filmmakers to follow suit.

Cinema as Political Weapon

What made Oshima truly dangerous wasn't just his willingness to tackle controversial subjects. It was how he used film language itself as a form of rebellion. Traditional Japanese cinema prioritised harmony, both visual and narrative. Oshima deliberately created discord.

DEATH BY HANGING exemplifies this approach perfectly. The film follows the execution of a young Korean man in Japan, but Oshima refuses to tell the story straight. Instead, he creates a surreal, almost theatrical examination of capital punishment, racism, and Japanese guilt about its treatment of Korean minorities.

The film's structure is intentionally disorienting. Characters break the fourth wall, the narrative loops back on itself, and reality becomes increasingly unstable. This isn't experimental filmmaking for its own sake – it's a calculated assault on viewers' comfort zones.

Similarly, DIARY OF A SHINJUKU THIEF used the story of a young shoplifter to explore the sexual and political upheavals of late 1960s Japan. The film mixes documentary footage of student protests with staged scenes of sexual experimentation, creating a chaotic portrait of a society in transition.

Capturing a Nation in Flux

The Japan of Oshima's most productive period was a country caught between worlds. The post-war economic miracle was transforming daily life, American culture was flooding in through television and music, and young people were questioning everything their parents' generation had accepted.

BOY, perhaps Oshima's most accessible film from this period, captures this social instability through the story of a family that stages fake traffic accidents to extort money from drivers. The film follows their journey across Japan, and what emerges is a portrait of a country where traditional family structures are collapsing and moral certainties have vanished.

The genius of BOY lies in how Oshima presents this moral decay without judgment. The family's crimes are horrific, but they're also survivors adapting to a society that offers them few legitimate options. It's social criticism disguised as a road movie.

THE CEREMONY takes this critique even further, following three generations of a bourgeois family through weddings, funerals, and other formal occasions. Each ceremony reveals another layer of hypocrisy and violence beneath Japan's polite social surface. The film spans from the 1940s to the 1960s, showing how Japanese society's fundamental problems persist even as its external appearance modernises.

The Underground Auteur

By the early 1970s, Oshima had established himself as Japan's premier underground filmmaker. Works like THE MAN WHO LEFT HIS WILL ON FILM pushed his experimental approach even further, creating a deliberately obscure narrative about student radicals and filmmaking itself.

These weren't films designed for mass appeal. They were made for audiences willing to work, to engage with challenging ideas and unconventional storytelling. This approach would later influence everything from punk rock to contemporary art house cinema.

DEAR SUMMER SISTER, one of his more personal works, explores themes of memory and desire through the relationship between a man and his sister-in-law. Even in this relatively intimate story, Oshima's political concerns surface – the film becomes a meditation on how personal relationships reflect broader social power structures.

Why Collectors Should Care

For physical media enthusiasts, Oshima represents something increasingly rare: uncompromising artistic vision. His films weren't made to please focus groups or maximise box office returns. They exist because one filmmaker had something urgent to say and refused to water it down.

This makes Oshima releases particularly valuable for collectors. These aren't films you'll find streaming on mainstream platforms, and many have never received proper home video releases outside of specialist labels. When boutique distributors like Criterion or Eureka do release Oshima titles, they're often accompanied by extensive supplementary materials that help contextualise his radical approach.

The scarcity factor is real too. Many of Oshima's films remain difficult to see, which gives physical releases added significance. Owning these films means preserving access to essential cinema history that might otherwise disappear.

Radiance Films have taken a step towards this preservation with their nine-film bluray boxset of Nagisa Oshima films entitled RADICAL JAPAN - CINEMA AND STATE.

The boxset includes many of the afore mentioned films as well as shorts by Oshima.

The Lasting Impact

Oshima's influence extends far beyond Japan. Directors like Wong Kar-wai, Gaspar Noé, and even mainstream filmmakers like Christopher Nolan have drawn inspiration from his willingness to fragment narrative and challenge audience expectations.

His approach to sexuality in cinema paved the way for more honest explorations of desire and power. His political filmmaking showed that cinema could be both intellectually rigorous and emotionally powerful. And his business model – leaving the studio system to maintain creative control – became a template for independent filmmakers worldwide.

Perhaps most importantly, Oshima proved that difficult cinema could still be vital cinema. His films aren't easy watches, but they're never boring. They demand attention, provoke discussion, and refuse to let viewers remain passive consumers.

In an era when so much cinema feels safe and predictable, Oshima's work remains a powerful reminder of what's possible when filmmakers choose courage over comfort. His rebellion isn't just historical curiosity – it's a blueprint for anyone who believes cinema should do more than simply entertain.

That's why Nagisa Oshima still matters. Not just as a footnote in film history, but as proof that movies can change minds, challenge power, and help us see the world with fresh eyes. In these times, that might be exactly what we need.