Transculturally Visualizing Tanizaki: Manji in Liliana Cavani’s Interno Berlinese

Abstract

Manji (1928–30) is probably one of Tanizaki Jun’ichirō’s best known works. The novel is structured as the confessional monologue of Sonoko, a married upper-class young woman who, at some point in her heterosexual life, falls in love with Mitsuko, a seductive fellow student. Their sapphic relationship is complicated by the intrusion of the ambiguous, impotent Watanuki, Mitsuko’s ex-fiancé, and Kotarō, Sonoko’s anhedonic husband. In an attempt to put an end to his wife’s momentary bewilderment, even Kotarō will find himself entrapped in Mitsuko’s web of voluptuosity and deception. As many of other Tanizaki’s stories, Manji has been adapted to film several times. This article focuses on one of the most controversial of these adaptations, namely the 1985 film Interno berlinese (The Berlin Affair). Directed by the Italian auteur Liliana Cavani, the film has, among others, the peculiarity of transplanting the original Ōsaka four-way love affair into Nazi Germany. This and other unusual adaptation choices will be discussed, in an attempt to grasp Cavani’s understanding of the story and, more broadly, of Tanizaki’s poetics.