The Wife's Confession
Yasuzo Masumura / JP, 1961 / 91 min.
In cooperation with Camera Japan, we are screening three restored films by Japanese maverick director Yasuzo Masumura, starring his favourite regular actress Ayako Wakao. In The Wife's Confession, she plays a widow on trial for her husband’s murder. 4K restoration.
The dark side of cult director Yasuzo Masumura, The Wife's Confession combines the pessimistic observations of film noir with the sensuality that Masumura would pursue further in later films. The Wife's Confession is an early film dealing openly with a woman's feelings about sex. It is credited with launching Ayako Wakao's career; seen today, her performance still amazes for its extraordinary focus and intensity.
She portrays a young widow standing trial for the murder of her husband, who died in a mountaineering accident. Flashbacks within flashbacks recreate her bitterly unhappy marriage to a brutish older man and her love for his young colleague, Koda (Hiroshi Kawaguchi). Her emotional life is brutally exposed to the judge, jury, and a curious public.
Complex narrative structureMasumura's unflattering portrait of this invasive society is captured from behind posts, from threatening angles and with hidden cameras. Within an unusually complex narrative structure, Wakao beautifully evokes the contradictory desires within her character – her lust to live and her wish to die – and remarkably is able to unite these.
4K restoration. Also screening in Eye: Yasuzo Masumura's films Manji (All Mixed Up) and Kisses.
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Details
Director
Yasuzo Masumura
Production year
1961
Country
JP
Original title
Tsuma wa kokuhaku suru
Length
91 min.
Language
Japanese
Subtitles
ENG
Format
DCP
Part of
Restored & Unseen
At last, a chance to see that Italian classic that’s been on the list for so long? Or relish that wonderful restoration of Blue Movie, the Netherlands’ most talked-about nude film of the seventies, when the Bijlmer district was still a sexual paradise? Restored & Unseen is a biweekly programme featuring classics and recent restorations, with introductions by experts.
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