All language subtitles for Mandara

ArtTheatre Guild Of Japan
Jissoji Productions

MANDARA

Planning: Kinshiro Kusui
Toyoaki Awa

Scenario: Toshiro Ishido

Composer: Toru Fuyuki
Performer: Kazuko Kimura

Art Director: Noriyoshi Ikeya
Still Photography: Hajime Sawatari

Director of Photography: Yozo Inagaki
Director of Lighting: Takeji Sano

Film Editor: Keichi Uraoka
Production Sound Mixer: Koich Nakagawa

Producer: Toyoaki Awa

Koji Shimizu
Akiko Mori

Ryo Tamura
Hiroko Sakurai

Shin Kishida
Daigo Kusano

Mihiro Wakabayashi
Maya Kitajima

Akiji Kobayashi
Shoji Oki

Yasumi Hara
Tokie Hidari

Director: Akio Jissoji

Motel Barroco

This is meaningless.

Meaning? What meaning?

A meaning is necessary?

I'll never do such a thing again.

You're right:

exchanging lovers once is enough.

No!

I'll never do this again.

Why?

- Didn't you feel good?
- Don't say such a thing!

Terrible.

Of course, doing this once is sufficient.

From the second time on,
it becomes a habit.

Embrace me. Erase all traces of that man.

What a serious expression Yasuko had.

You'd have treated her quite roughly.

A special service.

It may be the first time for them,
but there have been innumerable times for us.

I'm tired of making love out of curiosity alone.

But you don't want to continue
just with me, do you?

Yes, I want to.

I think we're good for each other.

Yet being 'good' doesn't
stimulate sexual intercourse.

Though at first I believed I would
be able to keep you for myself,

now I can't do so any longer.

Who has made me this sort of woman?

We've become emotionless, whatever we do.

Of course, I'm responsible for that.

I can't tell whether or not I've gone in
this direction on my own initiative,

nor what the aim might be.

You're not a stoic man.

You spoke the truth.

I've never lived with a plan.

I'm an untidy man.

That's why my present life sometimes
seems to somehow be very irresponsible,

and to have nothing to do with myself.

Me too, in front of you?

Not only you.

I become alienated from myself.

The present time becomes rarefied,
as if my spirit was leaving me.

At such a moment, I always feel like I'm being
dragged back to a certain point in my past,

with a paralysing feeling of ecstasy.

I was an average and unremarkable child
in the nursery and primary schools.

My parents were typical of
the rural middle classes.

I was their second son, and was
brought up comfortably.

However, when I was in the 6th year
of the primary school -

it was in the winter, I'm sure -

on one evening, they started
quarreling violently.

That was the first time for me.
I was so surprised that

I left the house,
in order to look for my elder brother.

I ran around, but I couldn't find him.

However, I wasn't inclined to go back to the house,

because my reliable home had changed

into a worrying one, all of a sudden.

I was afraid to return there.

I wandered about and...

noticed that I was standing near a certain
farm pond, that I loved as my playground.

As if I had been led there by something.

I had something vivid within myself and

was standing there, without any thoughts.

At that moment...

At that moment, all of a sudden,
I felt like time was disappearing.

Then...

a small sound, though one can't
really call it a 'sound', became audible.

It's an indistinct acoustic wave, such as we
may hear if we hold a glass near to our ear.

I felt a vivid fear and...

an inexpressible ecstasy.

I couldn't move for a long time.

The sight and the sound of that moment
have never left me since.

Though my parents are still alive and well,

that extraordinary emotion is
far more familiar to me than they are.

Even now, when I feel nervous and weak
and keep my eyes tightly shut in the night,

that sight, deprived of any humans,
emerges with inexpressible familiarity.

Then I can't move, as though
I was bound hand and foot.

That pond is still there?

No. Not any more.

Last year I went back to the outskirts
of the town, for the first time in ages.

It had been completely filled in,
for the construction of houses.

Moreover a motel was built there.

That is the reality.

I don't care.

That sight is a symbol.

As it's an illusionary symbol,
it'd be better if it didn't exist.

The less it exists in reality,
the clearer it becomes in my mind.

It is a sight from before I was born.

You ought to make love to
that illusionary sight.

When I die,

I shall lose my consciousness,
whilst considering that illusion.

I'll return to the previous world,
while being absorbed in the illusion of snow.

My death should then be pleasure itself.

What unbelievable childishness!

The place you'd return to wouldn't be
a woman's body, but that sight.

But I can't do anything about that sight.

I can't destroy something that is
inside another's mind.

It was a misfortune for you
to have loved a man like me.

How about parting from me?

I'll think about it.

Come in.

Those two couples were exchanging partners.

Was that so?
I didn't notice.

We could have hope in the couple who remain.

Today, try to act as I've ordered you.

What are you doing?

Help!

Set me free!

No!

I can't breathe.

Yukiko.

You were aware midway through.

Why did you stay silent?

And you, Shinichi?

You treated me as if I was a corpse,

silently, roughly and
without any regard for me.

Yes.

We have no words to speak to a corpse.

Hiroshi,

are you refusing,

because you suspect that

the baby within me
could be Shinichi's?

What?

It's true, isn't it?

But you are wrong.

It is yours, without any doubt.

You're an idiot.

Do you think I'm refusing because of that?

The blood of a baby is but a notion.

The proof would be a married couple whose
baby was mixed up with another by mistake.

The longer they live together,
the less they'd want to abandon the child.

If a man regards a baby as his,
then it is his.

If I really want a baby,

I'll have it given birth to, regardless of
whether I suspect it to be Shinichi's.

Then why?

I don't want a baby.

It's foolish to make a baby, and contribute
to the multiplication of mankind.

I don't believe in the concept of genus.

There is no 'mankind', but only
an aggregate of individuals.

Those who talk about 'mankind' forget the fact

that they're merely individuals,
obsessed with a notion.

Though there is an exception.

The relationship between a man and a woman?

That's it.

Idiot!

By 'an exception', I mean a man
who is obsessed with religion.

He's obviously an exception.

The Last Judgement.

"When the 7th seal was removed,

"Heaven and Earth were enveloped
by darkness. "

With these words, human beings
became paralysed.

But, Hiroshi - then what on earth am I?

An individual.

You're Yasuko, an individual.

An individual taking a female
form by chance.

I'm a man only by chance.

If so, then I don't understand
what I'm living for.

It's as if I was one of the living dead.

In that case, to live requires
an insolent 'so-what?' attitude.

I'll kill myself whenever I wish.

I live so as to find a reason to die.

Yes.

It's true.

At one time, I thought of committing
a terrorist act against the university.

But it's worse to die because of
the unity and solidarity group.

Do you want to bear the baby of
a man like me, despite all that?

Don Quixotes of 'Return to Japan'

'Return to Japan'

That incident on the seashore
is dubious somehow...

I suspect it was planned by someone.

Although the disorder of
our clothes was clearly visible,

the owner of the motel didn't doubt at all
our explanation, that we'd fallen from a cliff.

If he had planned it, he would have known the
contents of our half-hour of pleasure.

We'd have been made fun of,
and still continue to be so.

For I've been longing to be
violated as a corpse,

and you've been wanting to violate me
as a corpse, since that evening.

If we continue in this way,

I can't help but kill you.

The alternative means giving up pleasure.

Yasuko isn't a suitable candidate
for undergoing an abortion.

Abortion doesn't choose a woman.

Anyway, can you suggest a hospital?

Hospitals are similar everywhere.

Rather,

she doesn't yet seem to have
made up her mind.

She has.

She has already.

You ought to follow her.

I won't make her abort, because
I suspect it could be your baby.

I know that.

The hospital I consulted is
a gynecological 'Sawara' in Yasui.

Yukiko. Let's go to the motel.

All right.

Open Saturdays and Sundays only

What a motel!

It's only open
on Saturdays and Sundays.

What is that?

I remember the stronger man.

He attacked me.

Yes. I remember too.

Hey!

Do you remember my face?

Wait!

Wait!

We eat no meat.

Do you know why we came here?

You're creating here a sort
of Utopia or Republic,

which has at its centre
auto-sufficient agriculture.

Do you intend something like that?

Yes.

You're obsessed with a very old myth.

Utopia is merely a foolish dream that neither
Fourier nor Saint-Simon could realize.

I didn't bring you here because I wanted
you to judge my values.

- Rather it's you who wanted to come here.
- You're right.

I've come here because I wanted
to learn about that incident.

You made us experience a queer thing
by employing those two men.

One becomes a corpse, whereas
the other violates it;

what is queer in that?

You should have experienced
extreme pleasure.

You've lured us here with that.

It's true that we fell into your trap -

I admit that -

but you can't make us work here
like peasants.

I won't force you to do anything.

You're free to go back.

My wife knows...

No, all the habitants
here know that.

This way of life here, and that incident there -
how are they related to each other?

You despised me as a utopian.

I don't mind.

To put it in an easy way so that
you students can understand,

Utopia is a kingdom where the principle
of simple reproduction rules all.

For that reason itself,

agriculture and the search for eroticism
are the two main centres here.

Eroticism is endless, simple reproduction.

Or I could say that unlike sexual intercourse,
it is reducing reproduction.

Because behind eroticism, the shadow of death
is always hovering.

A human being wanders about,
looking for a brief taste of ecstasy.

But what is ecstasy?

It is a moment when one
loses the feeling of time passing,

or rather the feeling of history,
in a larger sense.

As Faust said:

"Stop, Time!"

Of all human activities, only simple
reproduction could create

an eternal space, deprived of time.

I heard you...

In a room in that motel,

you were talking about
a sight from your boyhood.

When your mind gets weak,

and is dragged little by little toward death,

you would return to that illusion.

When I heard you talk about that,

I thought you were the right
person to come here.

You may want to lose consciousness in
that snowy, illusionary sight.

That clearly tells us that that sight is no
other than the object of your eroticism.

You're right.
He doesn't like any moving things.

To move is an act related to time;

that's why he loves a still body,
as well as a still sight.

I invited you here because I wanted to

show you, and give you, a sight
that is separate from time,

not in a weakening consciousness,
but in the midst of life.

As I said, I won't force you.

We have a room for you over there.

If you want to go back,
you'd better do so tomorrow.

The doctor has failed?

I won't be able to get pregnant again.

It isn't the doctor who's responsible,
but you, who asked me to abort.

- You're responsible!
- What? Only you think so.

You're responsible.

Let's confirm our own will of solidarity,
before we execute today's action.

That's them!

- That's him!
- That's Nitta!

Trotskyist Nitta is with his girlfriend!

- Catch him!
- Wait!

Wait! Bastard!

Hey! Come here!

- I have no business with you.
- What? But we have with you:

many of our comrades were injured
by your destructive group.

One is even limping!

Come to our headquarters!

- What are you doing?
- Bastard!

Don't let him run away!

Don't let him run away!

Murayama? Oh?

I'm his friend.

Where is he?

That's what I want to know.

I've not yet received his rent for this month.

You don't know?

When you come in, you should
ask for my permission first.

Hiroshi.

I didn't expect I'd encounter
the unity and solidarity group.

But as long as you're opposed to them,

you won't be able to return to
the university. What will you do?

If I were to have to criticise myself
in front of them,

then I would rather throw a bomb at them.

You are always selfish.

But I'm not demanding that you accept that.

Shinichi, Yukiko.

God is very content that both
of you participated in

the ground-breaking ritual of this land.

I see.

Thank you.

It was nice.

What god?

Gods here and there.

Here and there?
But the central god may be single.

No. I've heard that in
the body of mistress,

dwell a Japanese god, as well as
a Hindi one and various others.

She says she's a prostitute for the gods.

A prostitute doesn't refuse any
customer who wants her.

A prostitute?

So she isn't only for one particular god.

Then what is Maki, the leader?

He embraces a prostitute for the gods?

It's not true,

for he's accompanied by those two wrestlers.

Leader...

I can understand that you don't care
at all if your sexual life is public.

But.

You don't have to hesitate.

What about god?

You never say anything about that,
which would compel us.

Do you want to be compelled?

I can't be compelled to believe.

Of course. Spontaneity is the only basis
for each member here.

There is no additional rule to it.

Only those who deny time
and history gather here.

That's all.

You don't need to worry about anything.

But what about gods' words, which come out
through the mouth of your wife?

They don't compel?

Unfortunately, the one true god hasn't
yet dwelled in her body, it seems.

And the true god will never speak.

The words of the true god may be like
an echo, spreading through the vast void.

It must be beyond our comprehension.

Whether you're an atheist or not
is irrelevant to that echo.

I learned it from her whom
god was embodied in.

Looking at her ecstasy,

I thought she was
being violated by a silent god.

Only in looking at her,

I experienced an ecstasy
that made me shiver.

The true source of that ecstasy doesn't
lie in the lascivious poses of a woman.

It's truly erotic because
there is no word contained therein.

I realised that.

"In the beginning was the Word. "

I've realised that that is completely false
in the world of eroticism.

That's all.

Really?

I can buy a woman here?

How much?

How much? 10.000? 20.000?

Or 50.000?

A woman's silence and resistance
make a man a rapist.

Yukiko and Kimiko, impersonating
corpses each time,

should certainly get the utmost pleasure.

The men are upstart peasants of
the Agricultural Cooperative.

I hope they won't die during
sexual intercourse.

For we don't yet have a device
here to deal with corpses.

Where will you find women?

Yasuko,

I guess they went to the seashore again.

- To that motel.
- No!

Never talk about it again!

Don't be so emotional!

They returned from the motel
a day after us.

Since then, their attitudes
have changed completely.

Do you remember the last time
the four of us met up?

While they talked with us, their
minds seemed to be elsewhere.

They ought to have objected to you,

by insisting that I should
give birth to the baby.

Yasuko. Let's go to the seashore...

no, not to that motel.

A cheap inn near there will do.

Let's take a rest for a few days.

It would be better for your body too.

When I recover, Hiroshi,

let's get married.

OK. All right.

- Hello.
- Hello.

You paint well.

What are you doing?

Where is this?

You...

Let me go back!

Let me go back! Let me get out!

Set me free! Let me go back!

In ancient times, women would
have accepted men at once.

A foolish act such as rape
wouldn't have been possible.

Contemporary humans have lost
the capacity for telepathy,

and their sensual capabilities
have regressed as well.

Open the door!

Open the door!

No!

Not only regressed: it is now
considered taboo.

No!

No!

Set me free!

As a result,

once raped, some women would remain
frigid for life, as if they had sinned.

Set me free!

Though people often use
the word 'love' nowadays,

it was originally a mean word.

Then was there once a word more
appropriate than 'love'?

'Benevolence'.

"Make harmony with benevolence. "

'Benevolence' is the word.

'Love' is accompanied by vulgar egoism.

'Benevolence' is clear of it.

Though love tends to destroy a community,

benevolence doesn't.

It's the principle that could raise
individuals up to form a community.

The woman is quite melancholic.

The man too looks depressed,
influenced by her.

They seem to have sufficient qualities
to become our fellows.

- Shigeo. Mamoru.
- Yes?

You go!

Watch out for policemen.

When I look at the sea, I feel as though
I were being gradually pulled towards it.

The rhythm of the waves to and fro seems
to coincide with that of my body.

That's proof that your body is weakened.

When we're weakened,

we always look to Mother Earth
and Mother Nature for relief.

And, as our ancestors were fishes,
we long for the sea.

But nature is merely a lascivious trap.

When one talks about the notion
of nature, one is finished.

But you should have been
more tender with me.

You speak like an egoist, who ignores
his own responsibilities.

Help!

No!

Damn!

Damn!

Bastard!

Damn!

What's the matter?

Hiroshi.

It's you.

What on earth do you want?

If we could reform the world
into such a Utopia,

we wouldn't need to strain.

Simple reproduction might be
a dream of mankind,

but so long as the mode of reproduction on an
enlarged scale is established, we can't remedy it.

We'll be absorbed into it sooner or later.

As its result, this valley, which you've
cultivated with hard work,

will be offered for sale as a resort property
by a wicked tourist agent.

I won't allow that.

This is the ancestral seat,
where I grew up.

I'll never hand it over to anyone,
no matter who it might be.

Your dream is naive.

If a tourist company isn't the right
example, then let's say 'the State'.

Once it aims at something, it will
carry out its will, at any cost.

Shinichi, what are you thinking?

I didn't think you were occupied with such
a Utopia, after having disappeared from us.

It's regrettable.

I expected you'd say that.

No matter whether this Utopia is
a decadent idea or not,

I'll be content if my present
dream is realized.

Hiroshi,

I no longer believe in the future at all.

I no longer think that a classless
anti-State will come to pass,

if only I rely on time.

You want to say you're a convert?

I don't know.

I doubt it.

Being a 'convert' means to return to
the university and get a job.

I don't belong to the category 'converted'
nor to that of 'non-converted'.

Rather, I've abandoned the world.

- That's a kind of conversion.
- No.

Suppose that after you've worked
hard relying on time,

the Earth becomes a single community,
without any classes.

There would be no revolution then,

because there wouldn't be any conflict there.

You spoke the truth.

It should be a kind of developed form of
primitive communism.

But in a society where there is
no conflict or development,

time is extinct.

Supporters of eternal revolution
fail on that point.

Absurd.

They practice eternal revolution
in order to deny it.

Word, word, word...

In other words, it might mean to feign to
believe in time, in order to destroy it.

But I'm tired of feigning in that way.

We had a commune for a short while,
in the barricades.

- Isn't that true?
- Yes.

- Don't follow a dream any more.
- No, I won't.

I was obsessed with a strange
eschatology in there.

Somehow, I seriously thought of the Paris Commune...

What were the city workers of Paris feeling,

surrounded by the national forces and
farmers, who should have been their allies?

Not what they were thinking of, but what they
were feeling, with their whole bodies and skins.

I was suddenly interested in that,
and wanted to find out about it.

That reminds me of you remaining behind
in the library we'd liberated.

What did you discover?

'Stop, Time!'

The same sensibility as Faust.

In a documentary film on the Paris Commune,

when they were established, a worker
threw a stone and broke something.

What do you think that was?

You imagine something like
a symbol of the political powers?

Get on with it! What?

A clock on a clock tower.

I went numb, as though I had received
an electric shock.

I felt as though I understood the workers of
the Paris Commune at once.

Wherever and whenever it may be,
to reform is to stop time.

I realised something then.

'Stop, Time!' means 'Come, death!'

That was the reason why you
insisted on absolute resistance?

Yes. I sincerely wished to be
killed by the Gendarmerie.

That was a regret.

But if you thought of actually dying,
you'd have had a lot of chances.

If someone had been dead
inside the barricades,

the advantage could definitely
have swung towards us.

Then, Hiroshi,

didn't you think of dying at all?

Of course not.

I wanted to make them believe that we would
go to the limit, but at the same time

I hoped that there would be
no victims on either side.

I expected that if there were to be a victim,
it would likely be among us, by accident.

I didn't suspect that you were obsessed
with death to such an extent.

That's why you were excited by
the body of the unconscious Yukiko?

Having survived,

I've been thinking ever since about achieving
a state in which I'm dead, alive.

Now I live in this place, strangling time.

Otherwise, I even thought of
becoming an undertaker.

I wanted to stay at ease among ex-humans,
who had escaped from the burden of time.

I thought about such things.

You ought to have become an undertaker.

I find radical limits in this Utopia:

were it not for the charisma of the leader,
a Utopia can't establish itself.

In other words, it's a kind of religion.

Whether primitive communism or Utopia, neither
one can ever be free of the burden of religion.

But in an extraordinary future society that
eternal revolutionists imagine,

we'll be free from both
charisma and religion.

Though a highly controlled society works
superficially well even in the Japan of today,

in fact, charismatic people are playing
active parts everywhere.

Although they believe in the future and depend
on time, they're realistic and of low quality.

Then what about Maki?

Even in this Utopia in the mountains,
he still breathes the air of modern Japan.

I'm not a charismatic.

- A charismatic is most likely to say that.
- He isn't a charismatic.

Even in that case, as we're outside of time,
a charismatic would only be a spatial symbol.

Then his wife is it.

She looks like a medium.

I wonder.

Various spirits seem to enter her.

Sometimes even the spirit of an earthworm
seems to enter her.

But a spirit is a symbol of universality,
isn't it?

I'm looking for a Utopia without
any symbolic manipulation.

We can't attain it without
struggling with time.

Shinichi...

You've in fact converted.

Not converted.

Only I've become a little more
sensitive to eros than others.

I've made your companion rest
in a quieter place.

Don't worry.

No!

No!

No!

No!

It's best to treat her roughly.

Will that have any effect upon her?

Ever glory.

Ever glory. Ever glory.

Hiroshi...

We haven't had any patients with such a name.

No one announces her real name
when she comes to have an abortion.

Jun!

Hi!

I wrote...

a note of self-criticism, and
returned to the university.

Do you despise me?

No, not particularly.

But I won't return.

How is Yasuko?

She's disappeared.

Didn't you hear of her?

Let's go!

OK.

He looks nice.

- Good!
- Good!

- Do your best!
- Turn!

- Do your best!
- Good!

- With your waist!
- Lift it up!

- Fine!
- You've done well.

Good.

- Let's go!
- Do your best!

Do your best!

- Do your best!
- Good!

Do your best!

Endure!

I lost this time too.

OK.

How mortifying!

But you've done well.

Let's go!

You've come back.

You've come back on a good day.

Today is a sacred feast day.

Many gods have arrived, and
Shigeo and Mamoru are taking care of them.

Good!

I couldn't find Yasuko anywhere in Kyoto.

Drink first!

Ever glory.

Two, three, four ya!

One, two, three, four ya!

Two, three, four ya!

A Utopia or a secret society?

They must have killed her, and yet
pretend to have done nothing.

Tell me!

Tell me!

Where have you hidden her?

Hey! Where is Yasuko?

She is dead.

Dead?

Say you killed her!

If 'charisma' is the ruling principle,
then it should be permitted to kill someone.

Where is her corpse?

Somewhere around here.
Today is the day of sacred feast.

- Don't talk of trivial things!
- Trivial?

You were fed up with her.
Why are you looking for her now?

Certainly I was fed up with her, but
it was because I saw my own shadow in her.

That's why I was irritated.

It wasn't that I disliked her.

It's too late.

Rather, you ought to form a couple with Reiko,
and become an inhabitant here.

It's no use endlessly thinking of a dead person.

Come here! Come here!

- Come here! Come here!
- No!

I'd prefer to die alone, than
to go insane collectively.

Shinichi.

Do you really believe that you can
erase time here? - Come here!

Shinichi.

Time is a notion...

not an existence.

I've abandoned the future.

I would be content if I can erase time
in my finite life.

Yes.

You're handsome.

You're a seducer.

I'll banish your gods.

With my sweat and sperm, I'll erase the place
where gods would dwell in you.

No!

I'll never be deceived by a female corpse.

I'm going to violate a live woman like you.

Now tell me! Where is Yasuko's body?

Where?

Where?

Tell me!

Tell me!

Over there.

Damn it!

Damn it!

Damn it!

Wait!

Wait!

Stop!

A female corpse which no god dwells in,

is merely organic matter.

And look at what's around her waist!

Traces of caressing are obvious.

- It's clear who did that.
- We'll search for him and catch him.

Now what's the use of it?

This land has become stained.

Let's depart!

For where?

Follow me, without saying anything!

There remains my land on Oki Island.

Let's go there and let's cultivate anew,
and remake our country!

Mamoru, hold it firmly!

Amulet in place of others

- Are you all right?
- Yes.

- Mamoru.
- Sorry.

- Don't be silly!
- Yes.

- Hold it firmly!
- Yes.

There is an old ship over there.

We should do what the gods and Buddha order.

Let's depart in that ship!

Depart! Set sail!

Stop!

Stop!

Are you that eager to die?

Dealer in swords

Though it's anonymous, they say
it must be a 'Masatsune of Kobizen'.

This is the registration note.

With this note, it's all right everywhere?

Yes. That's right.

But it costs 5 million.
You're really a rich man.

I've sold off a motel which had been
recently built, for personal reasons.

Because of inflation, it'd be better to own
a work of art, which won't decrease in price.

I see. You're right. It's a good idea...

Since nowadays, swords are no longer
of any practical use.

Man'yoshu

Attention please!

Super Express Hikari 84 for Nagoya and Tokyo
will soon arrive at Platform 12.

At Platform 12, attention please.

Please prepare, and pay attention to your goods.

Those who are accompanying passengers
can't get on the train.

Kanzeon Bosatsu

Fumonbon 25

Translated by quaisnord for ADC
Revised by lordretsudo for ADC