With the possible exception of Kurosawa, Nagisa Oshima (In the Realm of the Senses, Empire of Passion, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence) is the greatest living Japanese filmmaker. Unfortunately, most Americans’ knowledge of the modernist Japanese cinema doesn’t include Death by Hanging, Boy, The Man Who Left His Will on Film, The Ceremony, and many other Oshima masterworks. Max Mon Amour (1986) isn’t as good as those movies, but then what else is? This dry drawing-room comedy about an English diplomat’s wife (Charlotte Rampling) who has a serious affair with a chimpanzee was produced by Serge Silberman, producer of Bunuel’s last films, and written by Bunuel’s cowriter on the same films, Jean-Claude Carriere. Much of this film’s ongoing humor derives from the human couple’s sense of decorum; in a game effort to preserve his marriage, the diplomat (Anthony Higgins), who has a mistress of his own, arranges to have the chimp moved into their flat. Even for a filmmaker who essentially changes style with each pictureand has a reputation as a taboo breakerthis is uncharacteristic: the poker-faced surrealism of civilized people attempting to be mature about a woman’s passion for a chimp seems, not surprisingly, more like Bunuel than Oshima. (JR)