#irresponsible but romantic girl into a cold‚ near monstrous vision of vengeful hatred. arguably Masumura is asking the viewer to look at | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mariocki · 1 year ago

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Irezumi (1966)

"See how fascinating this painting is? A beauty trampling the corpses of countless men at her feet, feasting on their flesh and blood to grow and prosper. Tell me... don't you think she resembles you?"

#irezumi #japanese cinema #1966 #yasuzô masumura #jun'ichirô tanizaki #kaneto shindô #ayako wakao #akio hasegawa #gaku yamamoto #kei satô #fujio suga #reiko fujiwara #asao uchida #kikue môri #hikaru hayashi #absolutely beautiful film. full of deep‚ rich colours and vibrant detail‚ a masterful composition on a morbid subject #I've loved the other Masumura films I've seen‚ and appreciate his aesthetic focus and eye for detail but this is the first of his colour #works I've seen and it's a whole new level. near perfect in pure visual terms; plotting and script‚ while suitably dramatic #and tragic‚ aren't quite as perfect. centres on a terrific performance from Wakao as a woman transformed from an impulsive and #irresponsible but romantic girl into a cold‚ near monstrous vision of vengeful hatred. arguably Masumura is asking the viewer to look at #Wakao's distorted personality by the end of the film as somewhat grotesque or at least as tragic but i gotta say that in 2023 it's hard not #to feel a frisson of 'good for her' as she engineers the bloody deaths of every man who ever wronged her #the character could perhaps have used a little more nuance and I'd also have liked to have seen more made of the parallels in trading flesh #(both figuratively as sex work and literally as canvas for tattooists) but these are relatively minor gripes. a kind of updated fairy tale #with a moralist slant‚ but a deeply beautiful one. rain swept and blood drenched‚ deep shadows and pale skin‚ flashing blades and #rich fabric folds. sumptuous.

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