Japan Society's spring Globus Film Series Mad, Bad... & Dangerous to Know: Three Untamed Beauties of Japanese Cinema celebrates some of the most radical portrayals of Japanese women in film history by three iconic actresses. From March 31 through April 18, the 13-film series unfolds in three parts over three weeks: Ayako Wakao: Passion Made Flesh, Meiko Kaji: A Mad, Bad Unholy Easter Weekend; and Mariko Okada: The Discreet Charm of the Adulteress. General admission to each screening is $11/$7 Japan Society members, students & seniors. Tickets to the March 31 opening screening, Tattoo (Irezumi) are $15/$10 Japan Society members, students & seniors, and include entry to the DRESSED TO KILL! after party.
At the opposite end of the stereotype of docile Japanese women-heroic good mothers, chaste daughters and hardworking faithful wives-actresses Ayako Wakao, Mariko Okada and Meiko Kaji embodied the transgression of limits, breaking rules, flouting norms and generally upsetting everyone in Japanese films of the 60s and 70s. Mad, Bad... & Dangerous to Know explores the idea of unconventional beauty that these spellbinding actresses created through an unparalleled body of films, from rambunctious girl gang bangers and wild women's prison escapees to more subtly chained renegades such as a tattoo-possessed ingénue and a compassionate nurse cum angel of death.
Among such genre favorites as Masumura's Tattoo, two films from Toshiya Fujita's Lady Snowblood series, and Kiju Yoshida's seminal The Affair, highlights include:
A Wife Confesses, a rare Yasuzo Masumura film, influenced by Antonioni and Resnais, and one of the most original depictions of a femme fatale committed to celluloid.
Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41, arguably the most visually striking (and shocking) film featuring Meiko Kaji, Jailhouse completely blurs the limits between grindhouse and arthouse, to the point that it seems to make both categories irrelevant.
Woman of the Lake, one of the best--but lesser-known--Okada-Yoshida collaborations, for all its intense and refined eroticism. A depiction of desire at its most subtle and complex, the film has drawn comparisons with Bergman's formal experimentations.
Aside from a niche market in grindhouse and pinku titles, the films of Mad, Bad... & Dangerous to Know address concerns of the Japanese New Wave, post-war discontent, and the influence of international film genres such as the westerns and film noir. "Another unique aspect of this series," notes Japan Society film programmer Samuel Jamier, "is its function as both homage to the actresses and celebration of certain directors as auteurs. Both Wakao and Okada were muses and inspiration for two major film directors, Yasuzo Masumura and Kiju (Yoshishige) Yoshida, respectively, while Kaji navigated between filmmakers, a wild card of Japanese cinema at the time." On one level Mad, Bad... & Dangerous to Know reflects the status of the "movie star" during the Golden Age of Japanese cinema at a time when cross-cultural traffic truly emerged. On a much deeper level, it brings to light new views of gender politics in Japan and examines the interconnections between female agency, gender ideologies, and Japanese models of womanhood.
MAD, BAD... SCREENING SCHEDULE
PART 1 - AYAKO WAKAO: PASSION MADE FLESH
Tattoo A.K.A. The Spider Tattoo (Irezumi)
Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 7:30 pm
**Opening Night
1966, 86 min., 35 mm, color, in Japanese with live English subtitles. Directed by Yasuzo Masumura. With Ayako Wakao, Akio Hasegawa, Gaku Yamamoto. Print courtesy of The Japan Foundation, with permission from Kadokawa Pictures, Inc.
A dark erotic tale from the director of Blind Beast, Tattoo (Irezumi) follows the descent of a woman whose extreme beauty and ferocious nature bring her to the abyss. Otsuya, the daughter of a wealthy pawnbroker, charms her weak-willed lover into eloping with her. As they escape, she is abducted by unscrupulous ruffians and sold to a geisha house where she catches the eye of a tattoo master who uses her body as a living surface for his unholy art, engraving into her flawless ivory flesh a large and monstrous spider. As if under the invisible influence of its evil force, Otsuya grows more wicked as she excels in the trade she has been forced into, eventually consuming the lives of the unwitting men she holds in her thrall. Adapted by Kaneto Shindo from the acclaimed 1910 short story by Junichiro Tanizaki.
Followed by the DRESSED TO KILL! after party with drinks and hors d'oeuvres. Guests are encouraged to dress as their favorite femme fatale, show off their wicked tattoos, and model the latest in haute couture prison wear. Tickets: $15/$10 Japan Society members, students & seniors.
Red Angel (Akai Tenshi)
Thursday, April 1, 2010 at 7:30 pm
1966, 95 min., 35 mm, B&W, in Japanese with English subtitles. Directed by Yasuzo Masumura. With Ayako Wakao, Shinsuke Ashida, Yusuke Kawazu. Print courtesy of The Japan Foundation, with permission from Kadokawa Pictures, Inc.
Ayako Wakao gives a performance of extraordinary focus and intensity as Sakura Nishi, a deceptively naive nurse sent to the Manchurian front during the Sino-Japanese War. Tending to the massive number of injured Japanese soldiers, Sakura fights her own desperate battles as she finds herself the prey of her compatriots' unwelcome assaults. Before long, her selfless attempts at ministering to a soldier who raped her bring her into the service of Dr. Okabe (Shinsuke Ashida), a morphine-addicted surgeon who in turn becomes dependent on her, despite his impotence. A romance fleshed from the grief of his sexual failure, with its foreshadowing of death, blooms between the two, while men continue to fall on the battlefield. Is Sakura fated to doom those she most wishes to save? Is she both an angel of mercy and a dealer of death?
18+ This film is unrated, but may only be viewed by persons 18 years of age or older.
Seisaku's Wife (Seisaku no tsuma)
Friday, April 2, 2010 at 6:30 pm
1965, 93 min., 35 mm, B&W, in Japanese with English subtitles. Directed by Yasuzo Masumura. With Ayako Wakao, Takahiro Tamura, Nobuo Chiba. Print courtesy of The Japan Foundation with permission from Kadokawa Pictures, Inc.
On the eve of the Russo-Japanese war at the beginning of the 20th century, small-town girl Okane marries an old wealthy man to escape a life of poverty. Upon her husband's sudden death, she withdraws to her small farming village where she stoically submits to public opprobrium and lives the silent, sullen life of a pariah. Returning from army duty, Seisaku (Takahiro Tamura) enters the picture; he is the pride of his community to Okane's shame of the village. Nevertheless, the disreputable beauty and the honorable patriot begin an unlikely and tumultuous love affair that will eventually render him as marginal as she. Ayako Wakao delivers one of her best performances, winning both the Kinema Jumpo Awards (the Japanese Oscars) and the Blue Ribbon Awards prize for Best actress.
A Wife Confesses (Tsuma wa kokuhaku suru)
Friday, April 2, 2010 at 8:30 pm
1961, 91 min., 35 mm, B&W, in Japanese with English subtitles. Directed by Yasuzo Masumura. With Ayako Wakao, Hiroshi Kawaguchi, Eitaro Ozawa. Print courtesy of The Japan Foundation with permission from Kadokawa Pictures, Inc .
Young widow Ayako Takigawa (Ayako Wakao) goes on trial for the murder of her abusive professor husband in a mountaineering accident. Did she cut the rope in order to save her life and the life of his young student Koda, or did she do it for the five million yen from the life insurance policy Koda urged the professor to buy? Arguably the most intriguing film directed by Yasuzo Masumura, A Wife Confesses is both a film noir study of the hypocrisies of marriage and a lush psychological thriller featuring a wondrously ambiguous female protagonist played by Wakao, simultaneously a sympathetic victim and one of the most sophisticated femme fatales ever portrayed in cinema.
PART 2 - MEIKO KAJI: A MAD, BAD UNHOLY EASTER WEEKEND
Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion (Joshuu 701-go: Sasori)
Saturday, April 3, 3:00 pm
1972, 87 min., digibeta, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. Directed by Shunya Ito. With Meiko Kaji, Rie Yokoyama, Isao Natsuyagi, Fumio Watanabe. Print courtesy of Media Blasters with permission from Toei Co., Ltd.
Shunya Ito's film set the ultimate template of the women-in-prison movie genre replete with stabbing, shooting, raping, rioting, beating, burning, feral Sapphic sex, and copious nudity. Expertly riding the fine line between arthouse imagery and car crash-like anti-aesthetics, the story follows the quest for vengeance of Matsu, an unjustly imprisoned woman, to whom Meiko Kaji lends her unique star presence. Used, abused and betrayed by her first love, a corrupt cop, Matsu endures a variety of exotic punishments that would make even Cool Hand Luke cry, and eventually becomes "Sasori" (Scorpion), a byname for vengeance. Prepare for lock-down: this is sexploitation cinema at its most ferocious and classiest. Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion spawned three direct sequels, a pair of spin-offs, and a 2008 Hong Kong-Japan co-produced remake.
