Kenji Yamauchi, the leader of the theater company Shiroyagi no Kai, impressed international audiences with his stage-play-turned-film At The Terrace (2016). Many years later, he found in the covid-19 epidemic and Japan’s governmental response inspiration to turn to the field of sexuality to explore the societal field and the specific configuration of the Japanese Other – the network of ideals, values, demands, … etc. In 2021, he delivered Dawning on Us (2021) and, four years later, its thematical sequel: A Unique Country in Asia.

Kenji Yamauchi introduces the spectator to Yoko Kashiwagi (Ami Chong), who attempts to balance the care of her bed-ridden father-in-law (Masakatsu Yamauchi) on the first floor with illicit sex work on the second floor (General-note 1). However, after providing her services, she quite often ends up talking about Shinzo Abe, whom she hates. One day, upon learning that Kimura (Kenji Iwaya) also hates Abe, her sexual desire bursts forth and leads her, to her own surprise, to have sex with him. Namekawa (Takuma Izumi), who visits the same day, fares worse as his support for Abe results in his banishment from Yoko’s house and pleasure-giving hands.

While Yoko’s husband Mutsuo (Kaneko Takenori) remains oblivious to his wife’s profitable way of utilizes the bedroom, Tamami Sakumoto (Eri Iwamoto), the housewife next door, seems to have taken notice – and feels stressed by the parade of men and the sounds emanating from the opening of one-layered glass window of the house’s bedroom.

The opening of A Unique Country In Asia begins by introducing the spectator to two seemingly unrelated elements: Yoko providing illicit sexual services (i.e. hand jobs, …) and her own preoccupation with the inability/unwillingness of the political Other to improve the lives of the common folk. However, utilizing the logic of association, we can argue that the very fact that her turn to becoming a provider of illicit services is rooted within the discontent with the political Other and her belief that things did not return to normal once Shinzo Abe died– “It has changed but it hasn’t gotten any better at all”. This is, albeit indirectly, corroborated by Mutsuo’s comment at the dinner table: “Yeah, but, we’re short on money right now”.

Within the ‘erotic’ segments, Yamauchi takes much care to touch upon the frailty of the male subject within the sexual act and the unwritable sexual relationship. Kimura’s need to question how Yoko experienced their sexual copulation – So, how was just now? – is not merely a way to question whether he pleased her sexually, but an unsubtle attempt to confirm if she got off on his phallic status (Narra-note 1). Yamauchi light-heartedly re-affirms that the phallic fantasy of desirability – Do I have the phallus the female other desires or not? – finds its support in the female subject and the pacifying signifiers she grants him.

Via the character of Mutsuo, Yamauchi corroborates that phallic frailty is constitutive of the male subject. His sudden crying at the dining table shows that, beyond the confines of sexuality, men seek proof within the societal field to allows themselves to believe they approach what has been instituted as their phallic ideal. For Mutsuo, his low-wage forms an obstacle that imprisons him within castration, which renders him unable to accede to the fantasy of having the phallus for Yoko, his wife.

It is, moreover, by framing Mutsuo’s struggle with castration – the frustration of the phallic fantasy within the societal field – that Yamauchi exposes how the sexual act, for the male subject, often merely has a reparative aim; the female subject is turned into a mere masturbatory object to temporarily erase the phallic frustrations of daily life, to let the male subject taste, for a fleeting while, of the phallic fantasy – “This feeling of being healed; I can find myself again”.      

It is via the parade of men that Yamauchi ultimately delivers his societal critique. He touches upon the perception that politicians merely work to please big corporations, the stressing nature of the constant demand to be connected and available within the contemporary societal field, the rise of division and discrimination instigated by Shinzo Abe within the societal field, and so on. This series of complaints exposes right-wing ideology as being function of the inability to accept castration – the fixation on the non-existing national phallus – and ultimately culminates in the assertion that Japan should accept its castration, let go of its right-wing thirst to realize, once more, a phallic-capitalistic patriarchal fantasy, and let Japan turn into a small, unique country within Asia.      

Yamauchi indirectly re-emphasize this assertion by staging the disruptive effects the demand for repression within a right-wing pro-capitalistic societal field has on the subject. A Unique Country In Asia evokes the subjective turmoil that arouses from being unable to inscribe oneself in the right-wing ‘phallic’ fiction, a poisonous guilt injected into the mind by the oppressive presence of the societal demand to subject oneself meekly to its ideology. 

This disruptive effect is also staged within the narrative through the character of Tamami Sakumoto. The way Tamami Sakumoto is presented with the narrative of A Unique Country in Asia might seem contradictory at first. While she displays an aversion to the idea of sexuality and prostitution, she cannot stop seeking signs of its presence (e.g. recording the men that come and go, keeping her window open to hear the sounds of sexuality, …). She practically lives besides her open window.  

While Tamami’s subjective unrest exemplifies the societal demand to keep sexuality hidden within the wide-open societal field, her inability to close herself off from the signs of sexuality signals that an unresolved subjective struggle with desire is in play. Her symptomatic obsession with the disruptive sounds of sexuality echoes something that has a disruptive effect within herself, yet this something has, within the social field, no space to be formulated.

The comical moments within A Unique Country in Asia follow the same dynamic. Each time, Kenji Yamauchi seeks to overturn the spectator’s expectations and confront him with contrasts that produce subtle non-sense. The opening sequence, for instance, places a discussion of politics within a space used for sexual interactions – the libidinal energy sublimated an intellectually stimulating exchange of signifiers. Tamami’s hysterical breakdown and affirmation of the fact that she practically camps next to her window to register any sign of sexuality sorts a similar comical effect.

Kenji Yamauchi relies mainly on static shots to compose his narrative (Cine-note 1). Such simplicity, far from resulting into a boring composition, allows Yamauchi to refine the delivery of his comical turns and his light-hearted punches. He operationalizes the cut and shifting camera-perspectives to elegantly introduce visual elements that arouses non-sense, elements that disturb the veil of the mundane and, by doing so, generate smiles and laughter.

The reliance on static shots also invites the spectator to carefully read the way the cast brings their characters to life – they way they utilize their bodily presence and facial expressions to support the enunciations of their characters. However, even without such approach, Ami Chong would have stolen the show; she mesmerizes the spectator with the manner in which she gives body to Yoko and the way her character presents herself to others, pulling him/her into the narrative from the first minute until the very last.       

A Unique Country In Asia is a film that fully embraces the political dimension pink film once was known for. Kenji Yamauchi’s film comes to full blossom when one grasps the poetic effectivity of using the politics of sexuality – i.e. the idea that the sexual encounter between two bodies is phallically governed – to expose the problematic consequences of phallic sexuality propping up the political field.    

Notes

General-note 1: Masakatsu Yamauchi, Kenji Yamauchi’s father, was 98 years old during filming. This year, in February, he passed away at the age of 99. We would like to offer our belated condolences.

Narra-note 1: Attentive spectators will notice that Kimura does not merely seek to affirm his phallic status, but also determine whether his position is unique or not – he wants, like all men, to be the exception. That also motivates his question whether Yoko’s relationship with her husband is sexless or not.

Let us also note that Kimura introduces the question of his desirability from a position of castration – He presents himself as castrated within his speech in the hope that Yoko, with her signifiers, will dispel his phallic insecurity.  

Cine-note 1: Yamauchi mainly interweaves tracking dynamism in his composition, yet he also finds some opportunities to insert different kinds of dynamic moments, e.g. a retrained zoom-in shot; a subtle zoom-out movement.  

Cine-note 2: Yamauchi utilizes a thoughtful combination of camera-placement, placement of props, static shots, and dynamic moments to elegantly ensure that genitals generally do not enter the frame. However, he does seek to stage the reality of sexuality by framing pubic hair, inserting some shots of semen and even some shot of full-frontal nudity.