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THE GREAT HAPPINESS SPACE: TALES OF AN OSAKA LOVE THIEF |
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Contributed by Sara Schieron
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Sunday, 14 May 2006 |
| THE GREAT HAPPINESS SPACE: TALES OF AN OSAKA LOVE THIEF is a
bittersweet documentary about male "hosts" in café Rakkyo, one of
Osaka's premier host clubs. Products to their female customers, Café
owner Issei, along with his comrades receive professions of love from
their customers, admissions Issei calls "half-serious." Spending an
upwards of $100 to $10,000 a night on less than individualized
affection, these women buy bottles of champagne from $250 to $5,000 a
bottle and compete financially for the attentions of their preferred
host. Focusing on Issei, the head of café Rakkyo, the film fluidly
moves from topic to topic, essayistically exploring the hazards of this
astoundingly lucrative job. |
Objectified for a living, these men are unambiguous about their roles as salesmen. Most specifically, the boys say they sell dreams. Sex is involved but not central to the dream, in fact all the boys explain in one way or another that once the women have sex with them the girls feel they've achieved their goal and then don't come back for further patronage. The customers who attend the café are repeat clientele and most of them are prostitutes who hate their job and attend the café to spend time in an environment free of judgment. As the café patrons are interviewed they express sadness about their situations, saying things like "what am I doing with the body my parents gave me?" and "When I think of how I want to spend my money, the thing I want most to do is smile." While we hear this, we see images of male and female hosts plastered on phone booths and billboards. The number of young men and women that comprise this industry seems limitless. With this, café Rakkyo begins to look like more than a place where dreams are fiscally bartered and sold, it's a safe space for sex workers and hosts of other kinds to "heal themselves" and if playing love is part of that healing, so be it.
The thing that makes THE GREAT HAPPINESS SPACE beautiful is the same thing that makes it sad. It's a story of lonely people, knowingly comforting each other in a commodified environment that puts a price on "meaningful" human contact. As opposed to the work done by the prostitutes, the men's job exerts physical strain of a different sort. The men sleep all day and work all night. They have little time for social engagements of their own, they drink with the women who tell them to drink, dance, bark like a dog, etc. and at the end of the night, the men return to their empty homes, money in hand. The director asks, "Do you believe in "one true love"?" To which Issei responds "absolutely. I would love to meet that one girl."
A beautiful, intelligent film, THE GREAT HAPPINESS SPACE treats its complex subject respectfully, approaching the subject in a way both adaptive and fair. Meanwhile, the film offers a view into the results of human commodity that seems somewhat fixed. Everyone in the film wants changes none of them feel they can make. One of the hosts breaks down at the end of the night. He says ‘the people are so beautiful, it hurts me how they shine', and he cries at what he does and how much he cares for these women he helps trick into happiness. He's as much a pawn as they are, and who benefits from the arrangement is hard to see.
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