Eros + Massacre (1969)

Eros + Massacre (エロス＋虐殺, Erosu purasu gyakusatsu) is a Japanese black-and-white film released in 1969. It was directed by Yoshishige Yoshida, who wrote it in cooperation with Masahiro Yamada. It is the first movie in Yoshida's trilogy of Japanese radicalism, followed by Heroic Purgatory (1970) and Coup d'Etat (1973).

It is considered to be one of the most representative movies from the Japanese New Wave movement, and often one of the finest Japanese movies. David Desser named his book on the subject after Eros + Massacre. The movie touches upon many themes, such as free love, anarchism and the relationship between the past, the present and the future. Although the movie is a biography of anarchist Sakae Ōsugi, Yoshida states that he didn't focus on Ōsugi as a historical character per se, but rather on how reflecting on the present influences reflecting on the future.

Like most of Yoshida's films, Eros + Massacre is characterized by the immense visual beauty, the appearance of the director's wife, actress Mariko Okada, and richness in psychological and historical complexities.

Synopsis

The film is a biography of anarchist Sakae Ōsugi, who was assassinated by the Japanese military in 1923. The story tells of his relationship with three women: Hori Yasuko, his wife; Noe Itō, his third lover, who was to die with him; and his jealous, second lover, Masaoka Itsuko, a militant feminist who attempts to kill him in a tea house in 1916. Parallel to the telling of Ōsugi’s life, two students (Eiko and Wada) do research on the political theories and ideas of free love that he upheld. Some of the characters from the past and from the present meet and engage the themes of the movie.

Actors