All language subtitles for Mandala.1971

ART THEATRE GUILD OF JAPAN
JISSOJI PRODUCTIONS

MAN DALA

PRODUCTION:
KINSHIRO KUZUI, TOYOAKI AWA

SCREENPLAY:
TOSHIRO ISHIDO

COMPOSER: TORU FUYUKI
PERFORMER: KAZUKO KIMURA

ART DIRECTOR:
NORIYOSHI IKEYA

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY:
YOZO INAGAKI

PRODUCER:
TOYOAKI AWA

CAST:

KOJI SHIMIZU, AKIKO MORI

RYO TAMURA, HIROKO SAKURAI

SHIN KISHIDA, DAIGO KUSANO,
SUMIO TOMIGAWA

MIHIRO WAKABAYASHI,
MAYA KITAJIMA, GENSHU HANAYAGI

AKIJI KOBAYASHI,
SHOJI OKI

YASUMI HARA,
TOKIE HIDARI

DIRECTED BY AKIO JISSOJI

MOTEL BARROCO

This is meaningless.

Meaning? What meaning?

Is meaning necessary?

I'm never doing this again.

You're right, exchanging lovers once
is enough.

No, don't!

I'll never do this again.

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

It's frightening.

Of course, doing this once is sufficient.

After the second time,
it becomes a habit.

Hold me.
Erase all traces of that man.

What a serious expression Yasuko had.

You must've treated her quite roughly.

A special service.

It may be the first time for them,

but there have been
plenty of times for us.

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

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

I want to.

I think we're good for each other.

Yet being good doesn't
stimulate sexual intercourse.

Although I believed I'd be able
to keep you for myself at first,

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.

That's the truth.

I've never lived with a plan.

I'm an untidy man.

That's why my present life sometimes
seems so irresponsible,

having 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 moments,

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

with a paralyzing feeling of ecstasy.

I was an average and unremarkable child
in nursery and primary school.

My parents were typical
of the rural middle classes.

I was their second son,
and I was brought up in comfort.

However, when I was
in Year 6 of primary school...

It was in winter, I'm sure.

...one evening,
they started quarreling violently.

That was the first time for me,
and I was so surprised

that I left the house
to look for my elder brother.

I ran here and there,
but I couldn't find him.

However, I didn't feel like
going back to the house,

because my regular home
had changed...

...into a place of worry all of a sudden.

I was afraid to return there.

I wandered about, and I noticed...

...that I was standing near
a certain pond where I loved to play.

It was as if I'd been led there
by something.

I felt something vivid within myself.

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

It's an indistinct acoustic wave,
like we may hear

when we hold a glass near to our ear.

I felt fear so vividly...

...and an inexpressible ecstasy.

I couldn't move for a long time.

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

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 shut my eyes tightly 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 it still there?

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.

Also, a motel had been built there.

That's 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's 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's 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.

Is 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!

Let me go!

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.

That's right.

We have no words to say to a corpse.

Hiroshi, are you refusing,

because you suspect that
the baby inside me could be Shinichi's?

- What?
- It's true, isn't it?

But you're 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 nothing
but a notion.

The proof would be a married couple whose
baby was switched 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 let it be born, 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 exception, I mean a man
who is obsessed with religion.

He's obviously an exception.

The Last Judgment.

"When the seventh seal was removed,

"Heaven and Earth were
enveloped by darkness."

With these words,
human beings became paralyzed.

Maybe so, Hiroshi,
but then what on earth am I?

An individual.

You're Yasuko, an individual.

An individual taking 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 attitude of "so what?".

I'll kill myself whenever I wish.

I live in order to find a reason to die.

Yes. It's true.

I thought of committing a terrorist act
against the university once.

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?

THE RETURN TO JAPAN
OF THE DON QUIXOTES

"RETURN TO JAPAN"

That incident on the seashore
is rather strange.

I suspect it was planned by someone.

Although our disheveled clothes
were clearly visible,

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

If he'd planned it,

he would've known the pleasures
we'd tasted in that half hour.

We'd have been ridiculed,
and would still continue to be so.

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

and you've wanted 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 an abortion.

Abortion doesn't choose a woman.

- Anyway, can you suggest a hospital?
- Hospitals are the same everywhere.

But 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 one 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's that?

I remember the stronger man.
He attacked me.

Yes. I remember him too.

Hey! Do you remember my face?

Wait!

Wait!

We eat no meat.

Do you know why we came here?

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

which has at its center
auto-sufficient agriculture.

Something like that?

Yes.

You're obsessed with a very old myth.

Utopia's merely a foolish dream

that neither Fourier nor Saint-Simon
could realise.

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

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

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

You made us experience an odd thing
by employing those two men.

One becomes a corpse,
whereas the other violates it.

What's odd about 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 inhabitants here know that.

This way of life here and
that incident there, how are they related?

You despised me as a utopian.

I don't mind.

To put it simply
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 focuses 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 it's 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 sight is none
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
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.

If you want to go back,
do so tomorrow.

Has the doctor 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.

Before we execute today's action,

let's confirm our own will of solidarity!

That's them.

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

Trotskyist Nitta is with his girlfriend!

- Catch him!
- Wait!

Wait, you bastard!

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's 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'd like to know.

I've not received this month's rent
from him. Any idea?

You should ask my permission first
before you come in.

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 had to criticize myself
in front of them,

then I'd rather throw a bomb at them.

You're always so selfish.

But I'm not demanding
that you accept that.

Shinichi, Yukiko,

the gods are very content
that both of you participated

in the ground-breaking ritual of this land.

Thanks.

That was nice.

What gods?

Gods here and there.

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

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

dwell a Japanese god,
as well as a Hindu 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?

Not at all. He's accompanied
by those two sumo wrestlers.

Leaden"

I can understand
that you don't care at all

if your sexual life is public.

However...

You don't have to hesitate.

What about the gods?

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

So you want to be compelled?

I can't be compelled to believe.

Of course, spontaneity is the only basis
for each member here.

There's 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 the 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.

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,

did I experience 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 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 that motel again!

Don't get 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 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! Let me out!

Set me free! Let me go!

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 up!

Open the door!

No!

Not only regressed,
it is now considered taboo.

No!

No, don't!

Let go of me!

As a result, once raped,

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

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 does not.

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?

Go!

Watch out for the police.

When I look at the sea, I feel like
I'm 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 fish,
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've shown me
more tenderness.

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

No!

You bastard!

FUCK you!

What's the matter?

Hiroshi!

Oh, 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 as 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 my ancestral seat,
where I grew up.

I'll never hand it over to anyone.

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 disappearing from us.

- It's regrettable.
- I expected you to say that.

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

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

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 belong neither to the converted
nor the non-converted.

Rather, I've abandoned the world.

- That's a kind of conversion.
- It's not!

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.

That's 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.

That's absurd!

They practice eternal revolution
in order to deny it!

Words, words, words!

In other words, it might mean
to feign to believe in time 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've 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 was it?

A clock on a clock tower.

I went numb, as though I'd received
an electric shock.

I felt like I suddenly understood
the workers of the Paris Commune.

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 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.

So, then, Hiroshi...

Didn't you think of dying at all?

Of course not.

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

I hoped there'd be no victims
on either side.

I expected, if there were any victims,
it would likely be among us, by accident.

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

Was that why you were so 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 while alive.

Now I live in this place,
strangling time.

Otherwise, I even thought
of becoming an undertaker.

I wanted to be at ease among ex-humans
who'd 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 today's Japan,

charismatic people are
in fact active 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.

As we're outside of time, a charismatic
would only be a spatial symbol.

Then his wife is.

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 have in fact converted.

Not converted.

I've just 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!

It's best to treat her roughly.

Will that have any effect on her?

Ever glory.

Ever glory. Ever glory.

Hiroshi...

We haven't had any patients
with that name.

No one uses their real name
when they come for 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's Yasuko?

She's disappeared.

Didn't you hear?

Let's go.

Right.

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!

Endure!

I lost this time too.

How frustrating!

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!

Two, three, four!

A Utopia or a secret society?

They must've killed her
and 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,
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
about 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?

Shinichi!

Time is a notion, not an existence.

I've abandoned the future.

I would be content
to 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,
in which no god resides,

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.

What's the use now?

This land has become stained.

Let's depart!

For where?

Just remain silent and follow me!

There remains my land on Oki Island.

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

Mamoru, hold it firmly!

AMULET TO ABSORB BAD LUCK

- Are you all right?
- Yes.

- Mamoru!
- Sorry.

- Don't be silly!
- Yes.

- Hold it firmly!
- Yes, sir.

There's an old ship over there.

We should do what the gods
and Buddha ordered.

Let's board that ship and set sail!

Set sail!

Stop!

Are you that eager to die?

DEALER IN SWORDS

Though it bears no smith's name,

they say it must be
a Masatsune of Kobizen.

This is the registration document.

With this document,
I can take the sword anywhere, right?

Yes, that's right.

But it costs 5 million yen.
You must be a very wealthy man.

I've sold off a motel
which had been recently built.

Because of inflation, it's better to own
a work of art, which will retain its value.

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

Especially since swords have
no practical use nowadays.

"MANYOSHU"
ANTHOLOGY OF POEMS

Attention, please!

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

Platform 12, attention, please.

Please make sure
you have all your belongings.

People accompanying passengers
must not board the train.

Chapter 25: The Lotus Sutra.
The Buddha of Compassion...