Cast: Misa Shimizu, Takehiro Murata, Takeo Nakahara
Director: Takehiro Nakajima
Producer: Takehiro Nakajima
Screenplay: Takehiro Nakajima
Cinematography: Yoshimasa Hakata
Music: Hiroshi Ariyoshi
U.S. Distributor: Cinevista
Japanese with English Subtitles
"Okoge" is a Japanese word that describes the crust of burned rice left in the bottom of a rice cooker. In recent years, it has also come to be used as a pejorative term for a woman who likes to hang around with gay men. In Takehiro Nakajima's film Okoge, Sayoko (Misa Shimizu) is such a person. She is obviously both curious about the gay lifestyle and free of the homophobic sentiments which permeate Japanese society. She meets Goh (Takehiro Murata) and his older lover, Tochi (Takeo Nakahara), at a gay beach, and is so touched by their open affection that she seeks out the pair and offers the use of her apartment when they can't find a place to be alone. Before long, a close friendship has developed among the trio, and Sayoko becomes as much involved in the lives of Goh and Tochi as they do in hers.
First and foremost, Okoge is an examination of the difficulties faced by gay men in a society as conservative and restrictive as Japan's. Actually, many of these themes have universal implications. Switch things around a little and this tale could easily occur in the United States. Perhaps it takes a film from a different country to bring into perspective one of America's more ugly hypocrisies: the supposedly "free and open" society run by people with closed minds.
Too often, one of the problems with movies involving homosexual themes and issues is a tendency to sermonize. Both The Living End and Claire of the Moon are guilty of this. Instead of letting the characters and story bring the message to the fore, those films feel obliged to preach about the evils of a homophobic society. For the most part, Okoge avoids this pitfall. There are a few scenes that are too obviously scripted (such as one in which a bunch of gay men sit around debating whether their sexual preference is the result of genetics or environment), but the movie generally allows issues to be explored in a natural, rather than contrived, fashion. Okoge also has a sense of humor. Most of the jokes are at the expense of the homophobes in the film, and they are crafted with enough skill to get the point across -- and be funny -- without becoming condescending.
Nevertheless, all is far-from-perfect with Okoge. Instead of being a cohesive whole, it's more like two films, each very different in quality and tone from the other. The only constant is the characters. The first seventy-five minutes of Okoge is a skillfully-executed character study, focusing on the unusual menage a trois that exists between Sayoko, Goh, and Tochi. Then something happens to break one side of the triangle.
From that moment on, Okoge is never the same. It begins to wander, stumbling along as if unsure exactly where it wants to go. Sayoko has an affair with a soldier, the reasons for which are murky. Goh tries a heterosexual experiment that ends in disaster, and Tochi disappears altogether for a while. There is a sudden jump of about two years' time (which is left completely unexplained -- it takes about thirty seconds to figure out what has happened), and everyone's circumstances have changed. The film takes its last twenty minutes to resolve the various messes that the main trio have gotten themselves into.
I've never before seen Japanese actress Misa Shimizu, but her energetic performance is an eye-opener. I'm not sure how the character was written, but Shimizu's rendering of Sayoko sparkles. The two male leads aren't quite as solid, but neither Murata nor Nakahara does a bad job.
Okoge may not be ideal, but it goes a long way towards removing the bad taste left behind by such heavy-handed efforts as The Living End and Claire of the Moon. Not only does it give an intelligent, sympathetic portrayal of the difficulties of a gay lifestyle, but it presents them from a woman's point-of-view. Give credit to Takehiro Nakajima for daring to make this film in a country with such a rigid social structure. The strengths of Okoge certainly outweigh the weaknesses.
© 1993 James Berardinelli