The Pornographers

Japanese director Shohei Imamura retired following the completion of the arrestingly bizarre Dr. Akagi, released last year; The Pornographers, a 1966 B&W melodrama about an amateur smut peddler and the effect his vocation has on his adopted family, is proof that the filmmaker indulged a wack sensibility virtually from the get-go. Like his more recent work, it’s both visually striking and dramatically incoherent, a series of unforgettable images and gradually shifting moods rather than a traditional narrative. Those attracted to it for prurient reasons, however, will be sorely disappointed: Like all good films concerning pornography, it’s not about sex, but economics. B