Sion Sono
dir. Sion Sono
Japan 2016, 76’
Subtitles: Polish / English
Screenings
05.10.2023, 19:00
Cinema Muranów
In Antiporno, two women, Kyōko and Noriko, polar opposites and both strong characters, are embroiled in a psychodrama and sadomasochistic ritual. We watch the emotions that wash over them first as actresses on the set of a Japanese pink film, and later backstage, as they take on entirely different roles in real life. Based on the interdependencies arising between the extremes of dominance and subordination, this universal story about a difficult, toxic relationship, larger than life and even than cinema.
To mark the 45th anniversary of the Roman Porno erotic film series, the film company Nikkatsu invited Sion Sono and four other contemporary Japanese directors to take part in a project to make new pink films to a set of broad criteria (low budget, production within a week, 70-80 min. in duration).
Sono took up the challenge, but made an original production that stood apart from and had little in common with the original Roman Porno pictures made in the 1970s and 80s.
Sion Sono
“I’m not all that interested in Roman. I’m not that into porno,” the Japanese director admits coyly. As a feminist, contemporary meta-film with a poetic style inspired by women’s art, full of energy and a fantastical freeness, Antiporno would best be described as postporn. This is a genre of progressive art pictures that, while they do contain unsimulated sex scenes, undertake above all to deconstruct, undermine, or negate the strategies of mainstream, true-to-genre pornographic filmmakers. They show sexuality in a different light: sensitively, tenderly, rebelliously.
Visually stunning and garish (but not kitschy), Antiporno is an ironic commentary on the controversial BDSM films that were once the bread-and-butter of Nikkatsu. Nowadays, these are considered misogynistic, offensive, some of them in extremely bad taste, others even infamous, but they are still in circulation, appreciated for the quality of their production, colourful plot lines, and intriguing set design. Some are also still held to be beautiful.
Like other postporn filmmakers, Sono turns the approach taken by producers of Roman Porno pinku eiga on its head. His aim is to delight rather than to disgust his audiences, to glorify femininity in all its magnificence and richness rather than to denigrate it.
Production team
director: Sion Sono
screenplay: Sion Sono
camera: Itō Maki
editor: Itō Jun'ichi
score: Akizuki Susumu
costumes: Sawataishi Kazuhiro
cast: Tomite Ami, Tsutsui Mariko, Asami, Fujiko, Fukuda Ami, Hasegawa Dai
producer: Komuro Naoko
distributor: Nikkatsu, Django Film
language: Japanese
colour/ BW: colour
