His career may have produced a relatively short output, in the form of only having directed four feature-length films over the course of two decades, but no one would ever deny the brilliance of Toshio Matsumoto, one of Japanese cinema’s most fascinating provocateurs, and someone whose work has left a profound impression on post-war Japanese art. His 1969 masterpiece, Funeral Parade of Roses, is his most celebrated work, being one of the pioneering entries into a wave of queer-coded Asian films that would emerge in the following decade and persist until the present day. It is the work he is most known for, but it is far from his only worthwhile film. His final film, Dogra Magra (Japanese: ドグラ・マグラ) is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by esteemed writer Yumeno Kyūsaku, who was also known for his deviant perspective and ability to focus on very controversial subjects in his writing, and tells the story of a young man who wakes up in an asylum, surrounded by unfamiliar faces, including a doctor who reveals that this mysterious new patient is the culprit in a recent murder, after he allegedly murdered his bride-to-be in cold blood. Throughout the film, we follow this young man as he tries to make sense of his situation, which is only further complicated by the arrival of yet another doctor, a far more unhinged man who could easily be considered a quack, who makes it very clear that our protagonist has found himself in quite a precarious situation, the viewer following him on this strange metaphysical journey to uncover the truth.

What we see happening in Dogra Magra is the collision of a writer who was working in the pre-war period, and a filmmaker whose career started as a response to the changing mentalities that came about as a result of the end of the Second World War. Logically, their perspectives are entirely different – after all, the director was born only four years before the writer would meet his own demise. They come from entirely different generations, but it’s in this disparity that the film manages to make such a profound impression, since their varying mentalities forms the foundation for some of its most interesting statements. Matsumoto is making a film that doesn’t merely adapt Kyūsaku’s novel so much as it responds to some of his fundamental ideas – he is creating a dialogue that is inspired by his reverence for the writer, while still adhering to the confines of the original text. It’s a fervent tribute to one of Japan’s most interesting authors (albeit one that wasn’t nearly as celebrated while he was living, most of his acclaim coming about after his untimely death), and an attempt to bring this fascinating text to the screen in a way that no one during Kyūsaku’s may have been able to. Armed with the knowledge of what would transpire in the decades following the war, the director updates the material in a way that keeps it in the same temporal period in a technical sense, but has its sights set on the future, allowing this story to take on a new meaning. Much of Japanese literature around this time focused on the aftermath of the war and how it put the country into a position where they were irreparably changed, economically, socially and culturally, and through actively engaging with the fundamental themes of a novel that was relatively apolitical for the most part, and infusing it with this post-war commentary, Matsumoto makes something quite unforgettable.

It is perfectly appropriate to find yourself utterly confused by this film. Dogra Magra is a text designed to be intentionally impenetrable, with both the original text and this adaptation aiming to be as vexing as possible, since the sense of confusion that arises in the viewer is part of the mounting tensions that serve as the foundation for the film. This is a film rooted heavily in the concept of the carnivalesque – from beginning to end, we’re bombarded with an endless array of eccentric characters that are as grotesque as they are mesmerizing, each one of them being a vital component in the construction of this story, as they represent broad archetypes that play into the satirical nature of the story. The character motivations are kept entirely vague – we never really come to learn who any of these character are, despite the film being structured as a young man’s voyage into his memories in order to find the reasons for his forced entry into this institution. Yôji Matsuda commands the film as the protagonist, playing him as both an innocent, lost soul whose guilt we can’t understand, and a maniacal, scheming villain that we can genuinely believe committed such an egregious murder. He develops the character exceptionally well, and working alongside veteran actors Hideo Murota and Shijaku Katsura (two well-regarded older actors), they set the tone for the film and define these characters, who occur somewhere between heightened caricatures and terrifying constructions. It’s a character-driven piece, and hinged on the ability for us to invest in these individuals, regardless of how bizarre they were – and even on such a simple level, this film succeeds wholeheartedly.

Designed as an elaborate piece of theatre (to the point where corpses are dressed in kabuki garments), Dogra Magra is not a film that can be considered subtle by any means – but it is in this very approach that Matsumoto is able to make the most profound statements, since deconstructing reality and pulling away the layers of decorum and tradition leaves only the brutal truth of a chosen situation – and as heightened and macabre as the film may be, there is a message at its heart, with the satirical aspects of the narrative working in conjunction with the simmering fury that clearly persists throughout the film, a byproduct of the director’s continuous engagement with the material in the pursuit of something much deeper than just a surface-level psychological horror.  It may take some time to get to the point where we understand exactly what is happening, but it’s clear from the start that it is going to reach a point of some clarity. It does take effort to pull decode the film – this is a work of profoundly intense surrealism, almost to the point where it becomes incomprehensible. However, it is in this very approach, which combines a form of horrifying absurdity with social commentary, that Dogra Magra starts to make some sense. This brand of surreal storytelling doesn’t lend itself to much enjoyment, but once we find ourselves on the film’s wavelength, and are willing to grasp onto whatever fragments of a coherent story we can find while undergoing this bewildering metaphysical adventure, it becomes a lot easier to surrender to the strange charms that underpin the film.

Dogra Magra is a film that is bound to leave as many viewers confused and conflicted as there are ardent supporters for this strange but captivating voyage into the darkest recesses of the human mind. This is a profoundly psychological film, one built from the smallest details that flourish into broad and disconcerting deconstructions of society, all done through the perspective of a young man seeking answers to questions that he doesn’t even entirely understand in the first place. This is surreal horror at its peak – it never explains anything outside of what is absolutely necessary, yet never leaves us entirely at a loss, since there is something so primal and enticing about the methods the director takes to approaching this intimidating material. Matsumoto is often relegated to merely being the mind behind the celebrated Funeral Parade of Roses, rather than being considered an astonishing filmmaker in his own right. However, as meagre as his output may be in terms of numbers, he proved himself to be the definition of an auteur, his visual approach working alongside his unconventional narrative style, creating a nightmarish version of our world that is both repulsive and alluring – and someone who can make us so profoundly uncomfortable, while still keeping us entirely engaged, is worthy of acclaim. Dogra Magra is a film that refuses to play by the rules, and it is ultimately all the better for outright rejecting convention, forging its own path that may mean it resides in relative obscurity – but for anyone daring enough to venture into this world, a true experience awaits them on the other side.