Okiku and the World

Sakamoto Junji’s latest film is excremental – literally. Set in the late Edo period in that era’s eponymous city (now known as Tokyo), when, as a textual preface informs us, “the country had gone to shit,” Okiku and the World focuses on two unlikely protagonists who make their living by collecting human waste from the outhouses of the better-off denizens of the city and reselling it to farmers in the countryside. As the film opens, the seasoned Yasuke (Ikematsu Sosuke) agrees to take the paper seller Chunji (Sato Kanichiro) under his wing after the latter realises there’s more money to be made in the manure-slinging business. The pair are soon joined by the beautiful young schoolteacher Okiku (Haru Kuroki), who is seeking shelter beneath the roof of the outhouse. Okiku’s attentions are clearly drawn to the handsome Chunji – but how can their love blossom when she is the daughter of a samurai, albeit a disgraced one, while he is an illiterate orphan?

Travis Jeppesen / Sight and Sound