Sasayaki, Akihiko Shiota's remarkable debut feature, is a beautifully crafted and darkly comic exploration of innocence and perversity. Shiota gets a great deal of mileage out of the extreme contrast between the film's placid surface - that of a lightweight teen romance - and it's underlying themes of sexual degradation and control. The result brings to mind an Afterschool Special as directed by Luis Buñuel - "Venus in Furs" set in a high school. It is a film of great restraint and sensitivity, but shot through with a streak of wickedly intelligent humor that tempers the sweetness of idealized romance into something delightfully unwholesome.

Based on a manga by Masahiko Kikuni, Sasayaki owes far more to the refined eroticism of novelist Junichiro Tanizaki than it does to the "Roman-porno" or "pink" films that Nikkatsu Studios became famous for in the Seventies. This character-driven film strictly avoids sensationalism, focusing instead on the convoluted sexual dynamic that develops between the protagonists; a tension which is more psychological than physical. As the film progresses, the relationship develops layers of complexity and irony that go far beyond standard cinematic portrayals of adult relationships. But Shiota's approach retains an air of gentle simplicity that keeps all of the film's elements in perfect, effortless balance right up to the final shot.

1999 / 35mm / 100 mins/ Dolby SR / Color / NR

Sasayaki is coming to home video, 9/23/03, from KINO International!

Between Extremes- Patrick Macias reviews Sasayaki in the PULP 4.11.

(left) Kenji Mizuhashi as Takuya Hidaka

© 2000 Viz Films/Tidepoint Pictures