In August 2005, some weeks before the theatrical release of Hanging Garden, Toshiaki Toyoda was arrested for possession of marijuana. He was promptly blacklisted by the Japanese film industry and, thus, cut off from pursuing his creative impulses. Yet, while this period of being shunned by the societal field weighted on him, it did not crack him. The ordeal proved to be a fertile ground for his own directional trajectory; he turned to the themes of rebirth, renewal, revenge to explore the antagonistic tension between subject and (societal) Other.
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It comes to no surprise that one must read Toyoda’s The Blood of Rebirth as an allegory of Toyoda’s arrest and subsequent blacklisting, a phantasmatic answer to the way the conversative Other treated him and a creative re-affirmation of his radical refusal to accept the attempt to symbolically murder him – to erase his subjective voice. The Blood of Rebirth, utilizing the frame of the jidaigeki to critique the contemporary societal field, is a brutal attempt to re-introduce his critical voice within the dismissive field structured by the discourses, ideals, values of Other.
And, Toshiaki Toyoda does not mince words; he cleanly dissects the subjective ravages caused by capitalistic and patriarchal discourses within the societal field. The opening moments of The Blood Of Rebirth reveals what Toyoda considers the truth of the Japanese societal field: a hierarchal structure that allows the ‘masters’ to exploit the common folk as slaves – the common folk must produce surplus jouissance.
Toyoda also quickly takes the opportunity to reaffirm the dehumanizing element that defines such structure of exploitation. As masseur Oguri (Tatsuya Nakamura) massages Lord Daizen (Kiyohiko Shibukawa), he learns that the lord, having been poisoned by sexually engaging with tramps, responded by cutting all of their heads. This brutal act reveals that, for those who hold power, female commoners only have value as sexual objects; they are mere bodies to be exploited to generate masturbatory pleasure and satisfy the phantasmatically master’s phallic position.
Within such vertical system, the command turns brutal as it erases any kind of expression of subjectivity – the command forces the other into a straightjacket and forces a gag into his mouth. Oguri cannot refuse Lord Daizen’s order to stay – to be in his care, and Terute (Mayu Kusakari), despite her initial refusal, must let herself be massaged by Oguri.
Lord Daizen’s response to Oguri’s affirmation that death knows no hierarchy and everyone’s “time will come in order, “beautifully highlights that the phantasmatic pre-occupation with one’s phallic fantasy – the vanities of life – and one’s symbolic power invites the dismissal of the Real of death and stimulates the corruptive reflex – “God can work something out in return for money, I’m sure”; power-money-corruption. Later in the narrative, a peddler of supposedly otherworldly medicative objects, frames the others as pathetic hopeless hungry ghosts who feast themselves continually on their own narcissism to escape the hellish truth of the societal field.
Oguri ultimately pays for rebellious speech – i.e. confronting the lord with his own mortality, telling princess Terute not to meekly accept her subjected position – with death. Lord Daizen murders him because he, via his speech, signals that he merely plays with the symbolically imposed semblance rather than letting himself become subjected to it.
Oguri’s refusal to choose between heaven and hell in the land in-between offers the clearest proof that Oguri represents Toshiaki Toyoda. For Toyoda, the creation of this film, the act of sending this creation into the societal field, does not merely inaugurate his return in the societal field as creator, but creatively affirms his refusal to be (symbolically) killed off – it is much too early – and his determination, due to what befell him, to take care of his unfinished business with the societal Other.
Yet, Toyoda also evocatively shows the subjective state of being silenced and blacklisted by the film industry. While he, thanks to the intervention of Monban (Itsuji Itao), makes his ghostly return to the physical world – a hungry ghost, he is little more than a death presence, an immobile sack of flesh and bones, a depressed body whose signifier (masseur, director) by which he realized himself within the societal field has been brutally torn away. The finale of The Blood of Rebirth does not merely consist in taking revenge and disintegrating the phantasmatic sphere of vanities, but in evocatively reaffirming the director’s refusal of letting his signifier taking away – he will, with his creative hands, hold on to it.
Toshiaki Toyoda delivers a mesmerizing composition – a successful stylistic exercise to evoke the personal no-man’s land he was caught in after being blacklisted. He concatenates, with thoughtful precision, restraint dynamism (spatial movement, slow zoom-ins) and static moments together and emphasizes the subjective dimension of the visual fabric by fluidly interweaving stylistic decorations like slow-motion, idiosyncratic camera movements, and fast forwards.
Toyoda, moreover, litters his composition with visually arresting moments – e.g. the beautiful shots of scenery. In some cases, he even utilizes such refined visual compositions to metaphorically re-emphasize his reading of the societal field and expose its disconcerting truth – e.g. Lord Daizen holding the struggling fishes to cut their heads off.
He further elevates his visual fabric by fluidly integrating moments that marry his love for punk-rock music with evocative imagery – e.g. the introduction of the title. By interweaving such moments, such stylistic signatures, within his composition, Toyoda playfully reveals himself as the creative force, signalling stylistically that this is his narrative and his alone.
The Blood of Rebirth offers the spectator a mesmerizing and meditative elaboration of the way Toshiaki Toyoda was treated after his arrest. However, Toyoda does not seek any pity with his narrative of re-birth and renewal, but transforms the folkloric tale of Oguri Hangan into a personal warning for the Other: I will not let you ‘kill’ my societal position as director.
