In 1971 the Nikkatsu studio was struggling financially. They then abandoned all other film production projects and from then until 1988 they made nothing but roman porno films. It was one of the most astute business decisions in the history of cinema. Nikkatsu went from near-bankruptcy to prosperity and the studio continues to thrive to this day.
The term “roman porno” comes from the French term for an erotic novel - roman pornographique. The name was adopted because Nikkatusu thought, quite correctly, that it sounded kind of cool.
Makoto Katagiri lives with his mother Miyo. They live comfortably since Miyo runs a successful business - she makes S&M porno films. Makoto has a few sexual problems of his own. When he was a young boy he thought that a black American serviceman was hurting his mother. He must have been hurting her since she kept moaning. So Makoto took a gun that was kept in the house and shot the serviceman. In fact of course his mother was a prostitute, the GI was a paying client and Miyo was at the time thoroughly enjoying her work. Before he died the American GI tried to strangle Makoto. So it’s not surprising that Makoto is not quite normal sexually.
With women he is impotent but he masturbates regularly and with enthusiasm tinged with bitterness.
Miyo feels no embarrassment about her line of business. Sex has always been her business and she is perfectly relaxed about it. Makoto isn’t relaxed about it at all. He still has dreams about the night he shot that GI.
Makoto’s boss Senzô Tôyama has a problem as well. He has a beautiful young wife named Shizuko but she won’t have sex with him. He’s actually rather fond of kinky sex but Shizuko but allow him to have any kind of sex with her at all.
But he has a plan to deal with the situation. He will get his loyal employee Makoto to kidnap Shizuko. Makoto’s job with then be to train Shizuko to be an obedient wife.
Senzô Tôyama thinks that Makoto is an expert in sadomasochism and bondage because he found S&M porn in Makoto’s desk. The truth is that Makoto is a bit of a bumbling amateur. It’s his mother Miyo who’s the expert. Fortunately Miyo is on hand to help with Shizuko’s training.
Makoto ends in regular reports on the progress of the training. The problem is that Tôyama starts to suspect that Makoto is enjoying the training process a little bit too much. After all the purpose is to make Shizuko an obedient wife for him, not for Makoto.
Makoto also finds that with Shizuko brutally tied up his impotence is no longer a problem.
There’s lot of potential for both sexual and emotional jealousy. Tôyama is jealous of Makoto because he suspects that Shizuko enjoys sex with Makoto. Makoto is jealous of Tôyama because Shizuko belongs to Tôyama. Miyo is jealous of any woman that Makoto is interested in sexually or emotionally. Shizuko’s faithful maid Haru is prey to all kinds of jealousies. And the apparent emotional dynamics of the situation do not necessarily reflect the real emotional dynamics.
There is some stuff in this movie that is really hard to take, unless you happen to be turned on by forced enemas. It’s not that you see anything particularly graphic but the idea is pretty off-putting. I have a pretty high tolerance for kinky erotic movies but some of this stuff was way too much for me. I should add that the bondage scenes are fairly brutal.
It’s a pity because the emotional dynamics really are interesting, and the interest is enhanced by the rather ambiguous performances of several of the actors, especially Naomi Tani as Shizuko. She gives a performance that is both subtle and disturbing. We not only have doubts about what some of the characters say about their feelings, we have doubts as to whether they understand their own feelings.
There’s also the tone of the movie which at times veers towards twisted black comedy. This is certainly not a sex comedy but some scenes are played that way, or are at least pushed to the point of deliberate absurdity. These are people who are playing kinky sex games with each other but director Masaru Konuma and writer Yôzô Tanaka are playing games with the viewer as well.
The movie is based on a novel by Oniroku Dan, a somewhat controversial Japanese writer of S&M erotica whose work was considered to have a certain decadent flavour.
Impulse’s DVD is barebones but provides a decent transfer. They’ve released it on Blu-Ray as well.
Flower and Snake is a disturbing exploration of twisted sexual desire. If you can get past the off-putting elements mentioned earlier then it’s quite an interesting film but it is definitely not for everyone.
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