Over the years, the Japanese film industry has encompassed a wide variety of talents, from classical masters (Akira Kurosawa) to animist wild men (Shohei Imamura). When it comes to “New Wave” cinema, however, there’s only one name that really matters, and that name is Nagisa Oshima. While he might not be Japan’s premier cinematic genius, both theoretically and practically he is the nation’s answer to Jean-Luc Godard, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Glauber Rocha, and all the other aesthetically innovative firebrands who reacted against what Franí§ois Truffaut dismissively described as “le cinéma de papa”.

Although he initially made his name with some of the coolest juvenile delinquent potboilers ever (Cruel Story of Youth), Oshima soon went on to critique one aspect of Japanese society after another. These artfully targeted shibboleths included Tokyo’s excessively cozy relationship with Washington (Night and Fog in Japan), popular prejudice against Korean immigrants and the cruelty of capital punishment (Death by Hanging), and even the pronounced homosexual strain in traditional samurai culture (Taboo).

In the West, however, his most popular film remains Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, a sort of brainy version of Bridge on the River Kwai. Equally crowd-pleasing were Empire of Passion (a major prize-winner at Cannes in 1978) and In the Realm of the Senses, a hard-core critique of 1930s vintage fascism. (The first time this provocation came to Vancouver, one of its two screenings was cancelled after the Varsity Theatre was warned by the RCMP that the theatre would be raided if it were not.) Still relatively shocking—indeed, its most transgressive sequence probably should be excised—the last plank in this triptych proved conclusively that real sex did have a legitimate place in art-house cinema.

All three of these films will be screened as part of the Oshima & Passion x 3 series at the Pacific Cinémathí¨que (1131 Howe Street) from April 6 and 8 to 11 as part of a special benefit to aid the innumerous victims of the recent Japanese earthquake/tsunami/nuclear crisis. (Two dollars from every ticket will go to Canadian Red Cross relief efforts in that country. Additional donations will be collected in the lobby.) There is something peculiarly appropriate in having a national scold contribute indirectly to national reconstruction, for—as history has shown over and over again—it is often the most critical artists (Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Pasolini) whom history will transform into international glories destined to transcend their time and place.