I feel compelled to write a few words on tonight’s Cinematheque feature
THE SAGA OF ANATAHAN (1953):
I believe this is a very personal movie for film director Josef von Sternberg (1894-1969).
Made in his later years, when it is not uncommon for males to develop deep spiritual searches, and follow personal spiritual journeys, this movie finds him ‘hogging’ most of the credits, and totally taking over the creative control in order to avoid compromising his vision. Sternberg wrote, directed and photographed the film and though it wasn’t a huge success, it was probably exactly the movie he wanted to make for himself.
Sternberg had directed JET PILOT (1957) in 1950 and so ANATAHAN was his final film, made at the age of 59. I believe this personal project was his private religious work; Von Sternberg even providing the voiceover, using his own ‘stern’ voice-of-God narration.
He seems to be a pulling together many influences, particularly ecclesiastic, as religious references and biblical terms are frequently mentioned by the narrator.
I don’t know if anyone else has ever found religious parallels in this movie, but I spotted a stack of them...here goes:
Twelve (12) male Japanese sailors marooned on the remote island.
12 was the number of Christ’s disciples.
Until the Sailors (Sin?) arrived, the jungle (Garden of Eden) was a place for only one man and one woman (Adam and Eve), except that the male ‘Adam’ in the movie had an earlier wife; this might be to represent the Apocryphal texts which claim Adam was earlier married to Lilith.
The Japanese woman (Eve) is tempted to sin. The Sailors represent ‘forbidden fruit’. She succumbs to sin.
Interestingly, I see the actress (Akemi Negishi) playing at least 4 roles in this movie...
She is the ‘last woman on earth’ (book of Revelations), she is also ‘Eve’, the ‘first woman on Earth’ (Book of Genesis), she is also ‘fallen woman’, (sinning and sinned against) and incredibly, she is also Jesus Christ.
This becomes more obvious when we see how childishly her 12 followers bicker and fight for her attentions, worshipping her divinity. One can imagine Christ’s disciples vying for his love and attention.
The movie opens and closes with the symbols of Christ, the FISH and the CROSS, not forgetting Christ made his disciples ‘fishers of men’ and being later crucified.
The first scenes focus on fish in a pool of trembling water (holy water?) and the last scene shows Keiko (Christ) standing at the airport gates (gates of heaven?) wearing a robe completely covered with dozens of crosses.
This closing scene depicting Keiko ‘Christ’ waiting like the good shepherd for her ‘flock’ to return, and sure enough, one by one the sailors (lost sheep) are found. We might see them as soul survivors!
Like Christ who had left his disciples to return to heaven, Keiko too had left her men.
More biblical images follow in this exotic locale.
‘Adam and Eve’s’ hut, high in a tree was referred to as the ‘Hill Of Fools’. This could be an allusion to the biblical ‘Tower of Babel’ where so much misunderstanding took place.
At one stage ‘love-letters’ (emotional sustenance) literally fall from the sky like a divine supply of ‘manna’ miraculously falling from heaven. (Manna was the Hebrew food of the Old Testament).
We have the archetype of fratricide (brother killing brother) from the Genesis story of Cain and Abel (sons of Adam and Eve) as the once close sailors murder one another.
We have the faithful and impatient masses waiting for the great coming of the Lord shown in the sailors who refuse to believe that WWII has ended. They wait impatiently and ignorantly for the good news.
After 'Eve' sins, we see ‘The Fall Of Man’ illustrated beautifully with corresponding scenes of ‘The Fall Of Japan’. We witness thousands of humans being moved around and manipulated, and then clearly see a row of male farmers toiling the earth which corresponds well with God’s punishment to Adam that he should labor and toil on the cursed earth (see Genesis 3:17)
Corruption, power-struggles and violence of the fallen, phallus-driven, patriarchal world is represented by the guns.
The female nudity in the film was daring for the times, but I guess she is Eve and you don’t get much more naked than Adam & Eve.
The question might be asked, ‘Why did Sternberg use Japanese actors for his movie?’ Perhaps it’s because Japan was one of the few allies of Nazi Germany, thus seen as being ‘In league with the Devil’ so to speak.
It seems William Golding’s allegorical work LORD OF THE FLIES (published 1954) which portrays man-made culture and its disastrous failure, features an all-male cast stuck on a deserted island as well. I wonder if it may have been inspired by ANATAHAN. Interestingly, the title LORD OF THE FLIES is believed to be a reference to the Hebrew name BEELZEBUB which translates to ‘god of the fly’, ‘host of the fly’, ‘Lord of Flies’ and ‘Satan’.
ANATAHAN employs insect metaphors as well, although not in the form of ‘flies’, but rather ‘bees’…eg: Queen Bee, Drones etc.
Perhaps Sternberg simply had a ‘fetish’ for Asians. Who’s to know? Interestingly, Sternberg’s autobiography was called FUN IN A CHINESE LAUNDRY, perhaps adding a shred of proof of his predilection for Asian culture. Certainly there was a vogue at the time, even in America, for exotic Polynesian and Tiki art. Vladimir Tretchikoff’s kitsch and commercial, ultra-successful painting ‘Chinese Girl’ (with green-blue skin) became one of the most successful art prints ever.
Perhaps Sternberg was a Tretchikoff fan and heard his story (see below). Certainly Sternberg cast a leading actress with the same features as the famous painting.
Tretchikoff was inspired by Malaysian, Chinese and African themes.
In 1940, Tretchikoff worked as a war propaganda artist. In 1941, he was on board a ship evacuating ministry personnel to South Africa and the ship was bombed by the Japanese. The 42 survivors rowed to Sumatra, which they found was already occupied by Japanese, so then they rowed to Java, which took 19 days, only to find that it too was occupied. Tretchikoff spent the rest of the war in a Japanese prison camp (where he spent months in solitary confinement for protesting that as a Russian citizen he shouldn’t be imprisoned).
Tretchikoff became famous in South Africa thanks to a book that collected his portraits of Oriental women and flowers. His fame spread to the United States. He enjoyed enormous success when millions of Americans saw his paintings. His famous ‘CHINESE GIRL’ (1950) painting featured an Eastern model. It is one of the best selling prints of all time. He painted other popular paintings of Orientals, including MISS WONG and BALINESE GIRL.
Back to Joseph Von Sternberg’s movie with its shades of Orwellian totalitarian horror.
ANATAHAN looks like it may have been a precursor to the popular reality TV show SURVIVOR (created 1992), where tough competition in the jungles forces progressive elimination of tribal members until only a ‘sole survivor’ remains.
Robinson Crusoe (1719) about a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island and Swiss Family Robinson (1812) about a close family stranded on an island, may have been precursors to ANATAHAN.
Anywaves, I really enjoyed the movie. Thanx Brett. Yet another great choice by you.
Cheers,
Pia Santaklaus
PS: We never got to learn the actual names of the man and woman (‘Adam & Eve’). Perhaps if we rearrange the letters of ANATAHAN we get ATHA & ANNA.
Although ‘ANA THANA’ means ‘graceful gratitude’,
And I believe it also might be an abreviation for ‘between death’ in old Greek – HA HA!
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