The exact translation of the film's title--The Pornographer: An Introduction to Anthropology--only hints at Imamura's incomparable wit and appreciation of the perverse. But, as critic Donald Richie notes, “it does not indicate the smiling irony of the director's investigations nor the extent of his compassion.” Shot on location in Osaka, The Pornographer is the story of a man who feels it is his duty to restore to mankind some of the things that civilization has denied it--beginning with pornography, which he views as harmless pleasure. From an elaborate studio in his houseboat, he enters into the lucrative business of manufacturing blue films. “We are treated to scenes of the making of several,” Richie writes, “and these must rank as some of the funniest sequences ever to appear in a Japanese film.” Before long, however, our hero becomes saturated with lechery--his own and that of his clientele. Forsaking his fellow man, he re-invents the plastic sex partner to keep him company as he sails off into his lonely retreat. The Pornographer is a technical tour de force throughout; the camera constantly takes on the role of the voyeur, peeking through windows and even through fish tanks.