Onna no mizumi

Tokyo 1958

This short collaborative work from the Cinema 58 group takes the form of an avant-garde urban symphony that casts its gaze on the largest city in the world at the time, a place where the inexorable advance of modernity was in an oft-fragile balance with old traditions. The woodcuts observed by a young man (the influential author and film critic Donald Richie) in a display window are continually inserted into the cityscape as graphic animations throughout the film.

Onna no mizumi

In his series of “anti-melodramas” made outside the studios featuring women in states of emotional distress, Yoshida criticized the traditional roles of women as victims and objects of desire. Bored of her husband, Miyako (Mariko Okada) begins an affair with the young Kitano and lets him take nude photos of her. When these are stolen and used to blackmail her, she attempts to turn the tables on her abuser. “The anti-melodramas dramatically expanded a central device deployed pointedly, but subtly in AKITSU SPRINGS: the expressive use of landscape and the passage of time as a means of capturing a character’s otherwise unexpressed inner feelings and experience.” (Haden Guest)

After studying literature, Kiju (Yoshishige) Yoshida (1933–2022) joined Studio Shochiku, where he filmed his debut in 1960 and, together with Nagisa Oshima and Masahiro Shinoda, became one of the main representatives of Japan’s Nouvelle Vague. An innovative stylist and astute critic (and thinker) of cinematic forms and themes, his films are characterized by a philosophical depth.