Yasuzo Masumura - Black Test Car (1962)

"What's a company? What's a secret? What's a car? Are they more important than people? Do we have to kill to protect the company?" "Grow up. As long as we win." This exchange near the end of the movie sums up what Masumura explored with Black Test Car, a wonderful corporate espionage film-noir. The plotline can be summed up in one sentence: two car companies spie on each other as they push to introduce the first sports car in Japan. But the real story is that of the moral decay this race for glory and profit maximization entails, and in that it resembles Akira Kurosawa's The Bad Sleep Well (even if it's not as goofy) and is a logic if slightly less successful continuation to his own 1958 film Giants And Toys.

Hideo Takamatsu stars as Onoda, a scheming executive who leads the corporate espionage unit of the Tiger automobile company. When a test drive of the new model Pioneer goes terribly wrong and the competing company Yamato spreads rumors about the technical deficiencies of the car, Onoda has to do everything in order to restore the name of the company, and divert Yamato, who are developing the Mypeth sports car and are trying to introduce it earlier and to a lesser price than Tiger. Onoda tries to sell them bogus technical sheets, bribes their chief designer, spies on meetings, and even brings his underling Asahina (Jiro Tamiya) to more or less force his girlfriend to sleep with Yamato's boss in order to get some information. It is this immoral insanity that Masumura observes with amused fascination, as the simple promise of the car's release date seemingly equals promotions, glory, financial security, and even such private joys as marriage for two of the characters. In order to obtain these things, the characters do not only give in to their greed, but are willing to destroy others (be it physically and mentally) and to debilitate themselves.

It would be besides the point to simply state that the stylishly shot Black Test Car is a simple examination of the rotten moral values of a few executives eager to outdo the competition. It is the very economical system that makes this fixation on profit and corporate rivalry possible in the first place that Masumura criticises fiercely. The use of automobiles, and sports cars at that, makes it even more obvious, symbolizing the American way and the sweeping westernization during Japan's postwar economical ascent, and the parallel between racing cars and the race for market share and profit is an obvious yet effective metaphor to get the point across.

Masumura's attitude is one of ironic distance and the film is a fun ride (no pun intended) that delights in its twists and turns and retwists and returns (again, no pun intended). There is no sentimentality for a bygone era, nor humanistic fingerpointing, as Kurosawa would have done in such a case, just a mocking and uncanny scrutiny of a business model that blows itself out of proportion and consumes the souls of everyone involved. The performances are top notch, the editing swift, and the score wonderfully melodramatic. Thankfully though, through all the irony Masumura takes his film and its subject seriously, turning in another fine offering that is very much recommended.