Onibaba

Fourteenth-century Japan, an era of never-ending war and constant hunger. A woman and her daughter-in-law live together in a bamboo hut surrounded by tall reeds. Their son and husband is at war. To survive, they kill passing soldiers and trade their armor and weapons for some rice with an unscrupulous merchant. The will to live is indefatigable—evident also in the passionate, irrepressible sexual relationship the younger woman begins with a neighbor. Kaneto Shindo (1912–2012) was an extremely prolific director and screenwriter who co-founded an independent production company in 1950 that cast critical scrutiny on social conditions in its films. Shindo’s work paid particular attention to the poor and underprivileged, who had no part in shaping their country’s history yet suffered the brunt of it.