Terror masala

Luckey in Amsterdam

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In the realm of Oshima

DEATH BY HANGING (1968; December 20 at 9 pm) provokes on many fronts. Using an actual incident that he had been trying to work into a film for the better part of a decade, and drawing from emotions that had been growing for four years after a trip to South Korea (his first ever trip abroad), Oshima reimagines a famous murder trial (fodder also for many other stories and at least one novel) in order to confront issues including the shameful, ingrained hostility toward Korean-born Japanese, the ineptitude of the police force, and capital punishment while shedding the hyper-realism that marked his earlier works and moving toward a more expressionistic reality. A TREATISE ON JAPANESE BAWDY SONGS (1967; December 15 at 9:15 pm) is a coolly detached film that follows four male students in their quest for sexual — and violent — gratification. It culminates in a scene that offers not only sex and violence but also a biting speech by actress Akiko Koyama (Oshima's wife of 47 years) tracing the roots of the Japanese race back to Korea.

He provoked Japan's stringent censors with IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES (1976; December 19 at 7 pm), a hardcore erotic masterpiece drawn from the true story of an increasingly claustrophobic, sadomasochistic affair between a man and a woman who are sexually dependent on each other. What taboos were left? Perhaps he could take on the hallowed traditions of the samurai. Although he himself descended from this legendary class of warriors, Oshima didn't feel compelled to make a samurai film until 2000. He began TABOO (December 22 at 7 pm) after suffering a stroke that left him directing from a wheelchair, and it will likely be his last work.

• Shohei Imamura
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• Nagisa Oshima
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• Nagisa Oshima
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Having taken the male/female dichotomy of the destructive power of love to its logical if lacerating conclusion in In the Realm of the Senses, Oshima in Taboo ventures into the realm of the unheralded yet implicitly acknowledged homosexual relationships that would have taken hold within clans consisting entirely of men. He tread lightly on this theme with the homoerotic tension in a POW camp in MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE (1983; December 7 at 7 pm), but the destructive results depicted in Taboo — beautifully presented with lush cinematography and long, carefully crafted and observed takes — leave you wondering whether, despite the film's iconoclasm, he didn't in the end give into traditional style, embracing the techniques of an old master like Mizoguchi.

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