Tribute to Yasuzô Masumura 2023 / Tsuma wa kokuhaku suru / Japan 1961
Masumura has directed various unsettling films about women, and The Wife’s Confession is his greatest: a courtroom drama/film noir/melodrama about a young wife Ayako (Ayako Wakao) who stands trial for the suspected murder of her abusive husband during a fateful mountaineering accident. Whether Ayako was attempting to save herself or deliberately murder her husband becomes the central mystery around which Masumura concocts his treatise on the consequences of free will, the vanity and phoniness of self-sacrifice, and the hypocrisy of a patriarchy unchanged by the promise of a post-war capitalist boom. Anchored by one of the most fascinating femme fatales of all film noirs, The Wife’s Confession is Masumura’s most morally and emotionally complex picture.
Joseph Fahim
91 min / Black & white, DCP
Director Yasuzô Masumura
/ Screenplay Masato Ide podle předlohy / based on the novel by Masaya Maruyama
/ Dir. of Photography Setsuo Kobayashi
/ Music Riichiro Manabe
/ Sound Mitsuo Hasegawa
/ Editor Tatsuji Nakasizu
/ Art Director Takesaburo Watanabe
/ Production DAIEI studio, Kadokawa Corporation
/ Cast Ayako Wakao, Hiroshi Kawaguchi, Eitaro Ozawa
/ Sales Kadokawa Corporation
Kadokawa Corporation
2-13-12 Fujimi, Chiyoda-ku, 102-8552, Tokyo
Japan
Phone: +81 807 233 6972
E-mail: [email protected]
First-hand brews throughout the year.
Be among the first to learn about upcoming events and other news. We only send the newsletter when we have something to say.
