‘Picture of Spring’: Smart, silly and lots of fun

Between the 17th and late 19th centuries, Japan boasted a vibrant culture of erotic art known as shunga. Some of the biggest names in ukiyo-e (woodblock prints), such as Katsushika Hokusai and Kitagawa Utamaro, produced reams of sexually explicit images alongside their more respectable work.

These pictures sometimes served an educational purpose, but they were also a source of amusement — and aesthetic pleasure — for a society that didn’t share the hang-ups about sex that prevailed in the West at the time.

The arrival of Christian morality during the Meiji Era (1868-1912) put an end to all that. The artistic value of shunga is now more widely recognized overseas than at home: It’s hard to imagine the Tokyo National Museum hosting an exhibition dedicated to shunga, like London’s British Museum did back in 2013.

But times are changing, as evidenced by this delightfully odd film from Akihiko Shiota. Based on the director’s original script, “Picture of Spring” is both a crash course on shunga and a playful provocation.

Yumiko (Kana Kita) is a young university grad whose life is stuck in a rut until it’s shaken — in both senses — by an encounter with shunga specialist Ichiro Haga (Seiyo Uchino), right after an earthquake strikes the coffee shop where she works. Intrigued by this dapper academic, she pays him a house call and is quickly inducted into the world of traditional Japanese erotica.

It’s all surprisingly civilized, at least initially. During their first lesson, Ichiro discreetly conceals the genitalia in a picture to allow his new student to savor the rest. These early scenes play like an art appreciation class, with lengthy explanations of technique and form, and lingering close-ups of each piece.

Yumiko demonstrates a keen eye for aesthetics while keeping the other eye on her handsome older teacher. Too bad that Ichiro is still caught up on his late wife, who died seven years earlier. That doesn’t stop him from employing Yumiko as a part-time housekeeper in lieu of payment and bringing her as arm candy to a soiree for shunga aficionados.

Things get messier when a rakish editor, Shunsuke (Tasuku Emoto), shows up at the house and promptly seduces Yumiko. As he later explains, just being in Ichiro’s orbit liberates people’s inhibitions. Something similar happens to the film itself, as the performances get wilder and the situations increasingly risque.

At one point, the characters attend an exclusive gathering at which images are circulated around the room on a conveyor belt like at a kaiten sushi restaurant, while an elderly man provides the bawdy narration. The return of an old flame from Ichiro’s past sets the stage for a preposterous S&M finale that’s also, ultimately, rather sweet.

If I’m making this sound like “Fifty Shades of Ukiyo-e,” that doesn’t do justice to how much fun the film is. Although the age gap between the two leads will likely be a turn-off for some, Shiota gets the balance right in a way that a more prurient director such as Sion Sono probably wouldn’t.

The artworks featured in the movie are far more explicit than anything Shiota gets his cast to do. But as it progresses, “Picture of Spring” comes to embody the spirit of shunga itself: erotic, irreverent and disinclined to blush.