cast : rentaro mikuni , choichiro kawarazaki , kazuo kitamura , kazuko okiyama , yasuko matsui , yoshi kato , hosei komatsu , kanjuro arashi , chikako hosokawa , chikage ogi , jun hamamura . credits : directed by shohei imamura . screenplay by shohei imamura and keiji hasebe . adapted from the 1962 play paraji . cinematography by masao tochizawa . music by toshiro mayuzumi . art direction by takeshi omura . shohei imamura has always liked making " messy , really human , japanese , unsettling films . " and he has done exactly that in kamigami no fukaki yokubo ( the profound desire of the gods ) , a film he made in 1968 that had to wait two decades to be released in its full 170-minute version in the united states . using vivid color and and magnificent cinemascope photography , imamura reaches back to ancient myths to explore the incestual origins of human society in the tiny island paradise of kuragejima , in the ryukyu islands . imamura coalesces all aspects of the film into a coherent whole with a supreme confidence that permeates virtually every shot of his film . not until the short epilogue at the end does this rare sort of masterful filmmaking go slightly astray . the film is defined by its six main characters , who form a microcosm of both the island's past and its encroaching future . four of them are members of the futori family , which has a long history of engaging in taboo practices ( like incest ) and being punished by both the gods and their fellow island residents . because of this , they are commonly considered little more than animals by the other islanders , and they are treated accordingly . twenty years ago , nekichi futori ( rentaro mikuni ) was discovered having an incestuous relationship with his sister uma ( yasuko matsui ) . according to legend , the gods showed their displeasure by hurling a huge boulder onto the island during a terrible storm . the islanders then chained nekichi for his crimes and put uma in the care of the local noros ( shamanesses ) . to appease the wrath of the gods , nekichi has been digging a pit for the boulder to fall into for the past twenty years , and the job is nearing completion . nekichi's son kametaro futori ( choichiro kawarazaki ) is understandably confused about his heritage , since nekichi is the son of his own grandfather . kametaro is also uncertain about his future career plans . kametaro's sister toriko ( kazuko okiyama ) is mentally retarded and is quite content to wander around in a burlap sack and to be used sexually by island men . the other two main characters in the film are the village headman ryugen ryu ( yoshi kato ) , who manages a sugar mill on the island , and mr . kariya , an engineer from tokyo who is sent by his company to construct a water source for the mill . kariya is , of course , the representative of civilization , and he finds the local traditions and myths that obstruct his task to be incomprehensible . ( as may be expected from this culture clash , imamura draws a few comedic moments with kariya . ) also in the film is grouchy grandpa futori ( kanjuro arashi ) , who eventually dies and returns from the grave in a night-time vision seen by many of the islanders . finally , tokuri the balladeer ( jun hamamura ) imparts the film with much of its mythic proportions through his storytelling and songs . for most of the film , imamura calmly and casually explores the idiosyncratic world of the futoris and their life on kuragejima with an almost documentary-like style . but all throughout the film is an ongoing subtext that ultimately relates back to the film's title . furthermore , that subtext is the heart of the film and is crucially dependent on imamura's camerawork . typical of how imamura constructs his shots is one scene where kariya , ryugen , and kametaro ( who has become the engineer's helper ) inspect a cliff for sources of water . most of the scene is shot matter-of-factly from ground or eye level . however , as the three begin to inspect a hole already dug in the rock , imamura abruptly shifts the camera angle to an overhead shot . on one edge of the cinemascope frame is kametaro and on the other edge are ryugen and kariya . because the sudden cut is deliberate and repeated throughout the film , the scene strongly implies that the three men are being watched by hidden , unseen forces . and because the camera photographs the three men precisely on the edges of the frame , it seems as though the hidden forces are watching them through a perfectly situated window that leads from one world to another . the question of who or what these hidden forces are -- the key to the subtext -- is answered by numerous stylized shots of owls , lizards , birds , snakes , and other animals . ( these shots are , by the way , good examples imamura's fascination with hybridizing documentary and dramatic styles . he first explored documentary authenticity in his 1963 film nippon knochuki [the insect woman] . ) the common factor linking most of the animal shots is that imamura repeatedly focuses on the animals' piercing eyes . that -- and the fact that imamura includes them in the film at all -- transforms the creatures into physical extensions of an omnipresent divinity constantly observing the island from all directions . this is especially apparent when an owl with bright yellow eyes gazes steadily at the characters as they bumble around in a forest late at night . the cinematic link between nature and divinity is the underlying structure that the entire film is based on , and indeed it is the key to beauty of how imamura documents the vagaries of human interaction and the worlds in which they live -- the issue with which imamura is ultimately most concerned . one should note that imamura's camerawork both raises the sense of watching through a window and also conveys a sense of the animals -- actually legendary gods through the film's identification of divinity with nature -- as the ones doing the watching . what the film's title , content , and structure emphatically exclude is the possibility of equating the film's " gods " with the film's audience . it would be smug and arrogant to assume that the film's viewers are meant to be gods . because imamura's camera often switches focus from the human characters to the animals and back again , it is clear that the camera's field of view does not singlemindedly represent any one particular perspective . and even if it were imamura's intention to make viewers into gods , so to speak , the viewer-gods would be necessarily impotent and ineffective , since the viewer is at the mercy of imamura's cinematic and narrative judgment . to the other hand , one could conclude that the film is little more than an indulgent effort to equate the real god back to imamura himself . while imamura has played similar tricks in his other films -- most notably in his 1967 film ningen johatsu ( a man vanishes ) where imamura surreptitiously photographed a woman who is searching for her missing fiance and who falls in love with the fake interviewer-investigator imamura paid to accompany her -- there is no such sense of egotism in kamigami no fukaki yokubo because imamura never calls undue attention to his camera tricks . he also does not carry anything to gratuitous extremes . imamura is certainly fascinated by the dirty laundry of humankind , and it is therefore only natural that he would be attracted to the themes of incest and lecherous gods that kuragejima has to offer . but in this film at least , imamura wants to examine and learn from those themes , not exploit or revel in them . the abrupt epilogue of the film somewhat disrupts the flow of the film , but it does effectively address how these concerns have changed the community five years after the main events of the film . kariya , the engineer , returns with his family to visit , as does kametaro , who has become disillusioned with life in tokyo . although western influences have transformed the island ( coca-cola signs are everywhere ) , new indigenous legends are also emerging . imamura implies that such folklore will always find resources to survive in the face of encroaching realities . what is most striking , though , is how strange and foreign the visitors seem on the island . not having witnessed the events that led to the creation of the new myths , the visitors will never consider the rock named after the now-deceased toriko to be anything more than a curiosity . kametaro is best qualified among the visitors to realize the full import of the changes , and it is therefore appropriate that he is the only one who sees a vision of toriko dancing on the train tracks ahead of the locomotive pulling kariya's train . this is a rather clumsy method , but imamura makes his point : kametaro ( and the audience ) are well on their way to realizing that the story of toriko has now become intimately anchored within the village's traditions and collective mythology -- just as a large rock hurled onto the island became a part of the local lore twenty years earlier . imamura is in this film concerned with the symbiotic relationship among individual humans in a primitive society , as well as the dynamic tensions between civilization and mythology . he has managed to explore the relatively isolated world of kuragejima with both his and the residents' integrity intact . not once does imamura patronize the villagers . and his filmmaking is near the height of perfection . imamura's documentary-style footage is in fact decidely manipulative , but it is also disarmingly laidback and easygoing enough that that neither the narrative impact nor the cinematic illusion ( except during the epilogue ) is ever lost . kamigami no fukaki yokubo is another of imamura's excellent films , one that has endured two decades of obscurity in this country . the full length version will undoubtedly transform that situation for the better . 
