You can’t ever accuse Shohei Imamura of not delivering precisely what he promised throughout his career. When venturing into a film with the striking title of Pigs and Battleships (Japanese: 豚と軍艦), you’d easily be forgiven for thinking this is somewhat allegorical, functioning as a metaphorical reference to something embedded in the film. The surprise that comes when you realize that this is a film quite literally about pigs and battleships is palpable, and all goes into proving precisely why Imamura was such a fascinating cinematic figure. His story of a young man working for the yakuza, and gradually working his way up the organization’s ladder through hard work (and a lot of pig farming) is one of the most fascinating Japanese films of its era, a daring and intrepid dark comedy that takes a few risks, both in terms of the narrative and its execution, that don’t always come across as flawlessly as they should, but only prove the credibility the director had as one of the preeminent social critics of his age, a filmmaker willing to venture to unchartered depths for the sake of commenting on issues derived from his own curiosities. One of his seminal works, and a film that has certainly stood the test of time in a number of ways, Pigs and Battleships is quite an achievement – intentionally unlikeable, populated by despicable characters who never have their moment of redemption, and often ridiculously absurd in the story it weaves, Imamura’s work here is singularly brilliant. It doesn’t always function with the lucidity that the director often demonstrated in his other work, but it still carries an emotional heft that manages to be both outrageously hilarious and deeply thought-provoking, which is always a great merit for a film that seeks to be original without taking on the responsibility of being thoroughly revolutionary to its wealth of ideas.

The post-war era in Japan was a challenging time, which is quite well-represented in the art produced in the decades succeeding the war. While a diverse range of stories were told during this time, we can loosely divide them into the more formal works (normally those produced by the masters that predated the war, such as Yasujirō Ozu and Mikio Naruse, or came about concurrently, such as in the case of Akira Kurosawa), and the more playful ones, which is the area in which I am personally most fascinated. Produced by directors who adopted a more renegade attitude to their storytelling, and done through the most blatant subversion of conventions imaginable, films like Pigs and Battleships are quite challenging, in the best possible ways imaginable. Revolutionary in intention, simple in execution, these films were very much a departure from the more elegant, poetic work produced by the sophisticated older generation of filmmakers. Imamura’s vision was one profoundly influenced by western culture, even more so than Seijun Suzuki’s whose entire manifesto was centred on employing American idea into his profoundly Japanese works, finding a clear balance between the two. Imamura doesn’t adopt the cultural concepts so much as he borrows the sensibilities, creating prosaic works of fiction that test the boundaries of what can be portrayed in a film, and sometimes even flouts the principles of decent society, putting together films that are so exceptionally daring and volatile, the experience of watching his films is like walking a tightrope over an active volcano – we’re not quite sure why we’re doing it, and despite the constant threat of eruption, it’s going to be entirely worthwhile, since there is some deeper reasoning behind it that makes it so compelling and utterly unforgettable.

Japanese culture quite literally collides with American concepts in Pigs and Battleships, especially when we realize the basis of this film is a group of Japanese locals – many of them members of the yakuza – taking advantage of a nearby American naval base in their idyllic seaside town, exploiting the resources (and occasionally the people with whom they sometimes cross paths) and staking their claim to what is both unimpeachably theirs, and legally not appropriate to make use of. Many postwar texts tend to criticize the enemy from afar, using allusion and the audience’s ability to extrapolate as a way of keeping us engaged without devoting too much time to those with whom the film is regularly in conflict. Pigs and Battleships does this very differently – the Americans are placed front-and-centre throughout the film, and are afforded the chance to not only become a part of this film (especially speaking their own language, which sounds likely heavily-accented German masquerading as an all-American dialect), but also contribute to the narrative as a whole. The vision Imamura presents is oddly optimistic – this film certainly doesn’t go easy when it comes to alluding to the war, but it becomes less of a matter or reviling the obvious enemy, and more a chance of delving deeper into the relationship between the two groups. At the start of Pigs and Battleships, tensions are undeniably high, and they refuse to abate throughout the entire film, until it eventually reaches a point of no return, which is precisely where we find some of the director’s most potent commentary. When there is nothing else left to comment on, all that we can explore is the inner workings of two societies trying to live peacefully together, which becomes increasingly difficult with the agitators and revolutionaries that were seeking to not only make a statement, but help us remember it in its own distinct way.

Like some of the director’s previous work, Pigs and Battleships isn’t a particularly warm film. It certainly belongs to the category of darkly comical satires – you don’t easily make a film of this calibre, focusing on such specific ideas without abandoning a particular tone that defines it. Cold and cynical, but with an upbeat atmosphere that only further incites nothing but confusion in the viewer, Pigs and Battleships isn’t always clear about where it intends to go. However, this is precisely where the brilliance comes – Imamura isn’t looking to lead us down a path that we can follow on our own. The machinations of postwar Japan are impenetrable at best, so it often helps to have a filmmaker facilitate close-readings of this period through inventive ideas and a general sense of foreboding danger that alerts us to the real-world implications, while not dismissing the value of entertainment as well. The director strikes the perfect balance throughout the film, and manages to be quite profound at times, which isn’t surprising (despite the more upbeat nature of the film at some points). Carrying some serious gravitas, especially on the subject of more personal issues, such as the protagonist’s inner psychological strife, derived from his feelings of inadequacy coming into contact with his enormous ambitions, or the role of women in postwar Japan (a familiar topic for any analysis of work that looks at this period in the national literature), the film is often very overwhelming – it doesn’t dismantle the potential embedded in the premise, but also doesn’t want to be defined by any particular set of ideas either. Imamura had his work cut out for him in realizing these two wildly disparate concepts – and he certainly did succeed when it came to effortlessly navigating some treacherous narrative territory that could’ve been fatal to a director who wasn’t only less-skilled in the form, but didn’t quite know how to capture the chaos incited by Imamura’s fascinating vision.

It’s hardly surprising that Pigs and Battleships is a work that tends to divide audiences – this era of Japanese filmmaking was dominated by more elegant approaches to the human condition, made by directors whose polite style was extremely distinct, so it only makes sense that Imamura would capitalize on this perception for his own benefit, creating something entirely unique to his own individual vision. We get a sense that the director is touching on some raw nerves – no one is immune from being derided here, so we never feel the sense of loyalty to any of these despicable characters, all of which have their own shortcomings that Imamura exploits so well. It’s not quite biting satire, nor is it a broad farce – instead it functions as a blend of both, with the filmmaker venturing below the surface of the placid life of postwar Japan and making some scathing statements alongside the outrageous humour that persists throughout. The film may appear impenetrable – it certainly doesn’t make its presence as a controversial, twisted piece unclear from the first moment – but the more we engage with it, the further we’re taken into this epicentre of complex human emotions, which makes for truly rivetting viewing if we’re willing to look at the world with the same perverted cynicism that Imamura seems to possess when telling this story. Beautifully-made, often hilariously funny and consistently earnest in its attempts to be an enthralling dark comedy about serious issues, Pigs and Battleships is a fascinating work, and one that may not appeal to everyone, but will certainly give those attuned to this alternative form of historical epic something to think about.