writing under the rule of Abe Sada

For a long time, Arnaud Guigue admired The empire of the sensesby Nagisa Oshima (1976), who considers the“one of the most beautiful films about physical passion”without further questioning the real story that inspired the Japanese director in this “bullfight of love” (the original title), which pits Abe Sada, a former prostitute and geisha, against Kichizo, the owner of the inn where she works. A voiceover certainly concluded that, after having killed and then castrated her lover, the young woman had wandered around Tokyo for three days before being arrested in possession of the deceased’s penis. But Arnaud Guigue had not thought about the legal consequences of the case.

one day, “about three years ago”shortly after reading the essay Ceremonies. In the heart of the Empire of the Sensesby Stéphane du Mesnildot (The Black Lizard, 2021), has “reactivated” Due to her chronic interest in the film, she wonders what Abe Sada’s life was like after her arrest in 1936. She discovers that, sentenced to six years in prison, she was released after five years, in 1941. She wrote, in 1947, his Memoirs. , which a Japanese publisher subsequently published with the minutes (PV) of the investigation and the press articles published at the time on this resounding matter. “I tell myself that this book must be translated and that I would like to sign the preface”explains to “World of Books”. The two publishers with a strong Asian tropism, Arléa and Philippe Picquier, to whom he proposed the idea, rejected it due to the cost of said translation. But an editor suggested he write about Abe Sada’s fate. So she feels the beginnings of what will be I am the one you are looking forfirst novel by Arnaud Guigue, author of several cinephile essays, in particular on François Truffaut.

Then buy the book. Not knowing Japanese, he found, thanks to the National Institute of Oriental Languages ​​and Civilizations, a private teacher of this language, Aïme Konuma, willing to transform class hours into simultaneous translation sessions. During these, he takes note in a notebook of what seems essential to him in Abe Sada’s story, during the interrogations, of the weeks of passion with Kichizo that preceded his death. Then you will be able to see to what extent, in his Memoirs, he has softened the days that preceded the strangulation and castration of his lover, while recounting them to the police. “with an almost incredible luxury of detail”. This decipherment of the PVs convinces the author that Oshima read them: “From a factual point of view, the film is extremely faithful to what she told the police. This is disturbing, because when you watch the film you might think that it is based on the director’s fantasies. But its strength is to transform what is in the PV into something dazzling and make the relationship of lovers a kind of sacred rite. »

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