The film'sfull title, The Pornographers: An Introduction to Anthropology only hints atImamura's incomparable wit and appreciation of the perverse. But, as DonaldRichie notes in Japanese Cinema, it does not indicate "the extent of hiscompassion" for his protagonist, Ogata, a small-time pornographic filmmakerwho is shocked by the degenerate morality that surrounds him in his seedy Osakaneighborhood. Ogata is a do-gooder who feels it is his duty to restore to mankindsome of the harmless pleasures that civilization denies it. Scenes of his making8mm films cast with sub-amateurs are some of the funniest in Japanese cinema.Before long, however, our hero becomes saturated with lechery-his own and that ofhis clientele-and, foresaking his fellow man, he sails off into a lonely retreat.The Pornographers is a technical tour-de-force: the camera constantly takes onthe role of voyeur, peeking through windows, keyholes, fishtanks, anythingpeekable-most obviously, a movie lens.