The Whispering of the Gods (2005)

Pre-eminent Japanese cinema critic Donald Richie called it “the most powerful Japanese film of the year." Japan Times critic Mark Schilling selected it as one of the ten best films of the year. Most astonishingly, the film’s producer Genjiro Arato actually constructed a special theater on the grounds of a national park for the sole purpose of screening the film. The Whispering of the Gods is the most controversial Japanese film in years, yet this 2005 production is only now making its slightly belated American premiere (but you might understand why other festivals may have been afraid to touch this one). First-time director Tatsushi mori’s startling and graphic drama deals with the collision of the sacred and the profane, surveying the consequences of sexual abuse in the most unflinching way imaginable. (Sensitive viewers are cautioned, as the film contains explicit sexuality as well as images of animal cruelty.) Rou returns to the rural seminary farm where he studied as a boy and was molested by priests. Rou has recently had a history of violence, and he brings this anger to the seminary, triggering a series of atrocities within the seemingly peaceful retreat – indeed, much of Whispering consists of sequences of sexual perversion that allow mori to comment on the cycle of abuse and how the distortion of sexuality and spirituality can create hell on earth. Featuring painterly cinematography of wintry landscapes by Ryo Otsuka, Whispering can be recommended only for the brave viewer, but it remains an extraordinary debut.