Shohei Imamura’s Profound Desires of the Gods is a confounding, mysterious, and utterly captivating film that explores the tensions between modernity and tradition, the individual and the community, and the past and present. With its nearly three-hour running time and sprawling narrative, I had hoped that the multiple story threads would have come together more seamlessly, but there’s a messy chaos to characters’ appearances and disappearances that prevents the film from ever feeling as rich or satisfying as it could have been. Still, the ways in which Imamura transposes ancient myth into a modern setting is deeply compelling, as is the tragic portrait of a deeply flawed family shackled to tradition. Imamura’s haunting images and eerie soundscape will remain with me for a long while – this is definitely a film to which I will return as I explore more of Imamura’s filmography.
This review was generously supported by Patreon Supporter Michael Hutchins.
