Festival ’90 : THE MASTER RETURNS FROM THE’ DUNES ‘ : With Japanese tea ceremony as its metaphor, ‘Rikyu’ represents a 30-year-long project for film director Hiroshi Teshigahara

Twenty-five years ago Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara achieved international renown with “Woman in the Dunes,” an eerie, boldly sensual fable in which an entomologist is lured by a woman into a sand pit only to have to shovel endlessly to keep from becoming engulfed by the sand. It won a special jury prize at Cannes, yet Teshigahara has made only a few films since.

Now he has returned with his first feature in 17 years, the prize-laden “Rikyu,” a period film that looks to be an instant classic. As a historical tragedy it brings to mind “A Man for All Seasons” in its depiction of a Buddhist priest, Rikyu, who as a matter of conscience, comes to a parting of the ways with his master, the great war lord Hideyoshi Toyotomi. The film’s metaphor is the tea ceremony, which Rikyu brought to a perfection of simplicity as a ritual of the spirit but which became for Hideyoshi an expression of gaudy power. “Rikyu” is a rich period piece featuring elaborate costumes designed by Emi Wada, who won an Oscar for her work in Kurosawa’s “Ran.”

Although Teshigahara has never really given up making films--his last work was a documentary on Antonio Gaudi made five years ago--more and more of his time has been taken up with ceramics and with the management of Sogetsu, the flower-arranging school his late father founded in the 1920s. Flower arranging is not only a favorite Japanese art but is clearly also a big business. Sogetsu is headquartered in a sleek 11-story building designed by leading Japanese architect Kenzo Tange, whose offices occupy the top two floors. The lobby is filled with a tiered rock garden sculpted by Isamu Noguchi. A calm, elegant man of 62, Teshigahara greets his guests in a conference room dominated by Louise Nevelson’s black-painted construction “Tide Garden III.” The large room offers a superb view of the grounds of the Imperial Palace.

“I’ve had the idea for the film for 12 or 13 years,” Teshigahara said through an interpreter. “In the meantime I did a lot of research in addition to reading Yaeko Nogami’s novel, ‘Hideyoshi and Sen-no Rikyu.’ I worked a little over two years on the script with Gempei Akasegawa, who is a painter and also a novelist. Then I became very busy with my business.

“I had a very deep interest in Rikyu not only as a great tea master but also as a man of strong principles and beliefs. Through the art of the tea ceremony, he was actually trying to promote an artistic movement, and this meant that he would have to get into the arena of politics, which was how he came to be a trusted adviser to Hideyoshi.”

Teshigahara enjoyed the challenge of making an intricate period picture and working with actors again. “In making a period film, the camera and lighting are probably the most important aspects,” he said. “You need to get a three-dimensional reality on the screen and still create the feeling that the rooms are lit only by candles. Another very important thing was the tea house itself--a small space, dimly lit. Tea masters are very sensitive to lighting. The bamboo shades had to be set at a very precise level so that the audience would sense that it was right.”

“Rikyu” represents a collaboration of 30 years standing between Teshigahara and renowned composer Toru Takemitsu, who first worked with the director on his 1959 documentary on boxer Jose Torres. “He’s an artist, he doesn’t come from the film industry, and that’s a big help,” Takemitsu said of his old friend. “He has very strong principles, and I like the way he thinks. We understand each other.”

“I asked Mr. and Mrs. Takemitsu to look at the film,” said Teshigahara, who revealed a bantering, mischievous affection for the composer. “One of the first things Mrs. Takemitsu said was that there was no need for music. Then I thought about that and decided that we needed it in a few places. That got to be 28 places! Because of the film’s historical background, a time when Japan received its first exposure to European music, we thought that the score could reflect a cross-cultural encounter, an overlapping of traditional Japanese music and a few chansons . Mr. Takemitsu likes his scores to be as subtle as possible so that when people come out of the theater, they ask themselves whether there was music or not. Ha! With this film it’s always obvious that we’re hearing one of Mr. Takemitsu’s grand works!”

Rentaro Mikuni has the film’s title role and Tsutomu Yamazaki is the fiercely proud Hideyoshi. Both are among Japan’s finest veteran actors. Mikuni was most recently seen as the crooked religious cult leader in Juzo Itami’s “A Taxing Woman Returns,” and Yamazaki, an Itami favorite, was the limping gangster in “A Taxing Woman.” For Mikuni, a star for more than four decades, “Rikyu” represents a new plateau in a distinguished career.

“When we decided on (Mikuni) for the role of Rikyu, we agreed he would have to put aside all surface acting,” Teshigahara said. “Everything would have to come from within, we would have to see what would flow out. The film has brought about a turning point in his career. For any actor, the first time he stops acting and hopes something will come out will give him a feeling of insecurity. So during the shooting there were times when (Mikuni) felt he would have to do some ‘acting,’ and I would have to say, ‘Listen, Mr. Mikuni, we decided to forget about so-called surface acting.’ That would bring him back to what he had agreed to, and the result was an even greater kind of acting.

“As for Mr. Yamazaki, who had a role of someone very powerful, we wanted to bring out his authority to the point that it would become comical--the effect of ‘The Emperor Has No Clothes. We wanted to show Hideyoshi’s power in all its different phases, and to provide a contrast to Rikyu.”

Teshigahara now sees “Rikyu” as a culmination of all his interests in various arts he has studied throughout his life. “I began to see the role of the director in that of the master of the tea ceremony,” he said. “It is he who decides what the flower arrangement will be and where it will be placed, what kind of scroll will be used and where it will be hung. The utensils of the tea ceremony are like the props on a set. It is the tea master who is in control of everything, and when everything is in harmony, there is communication. If his guests are happy, then he is happy. And this is what I’m trying to accomplish as a director.”