Woman of the Lake (1966)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Woman of the Lake (1966) – Y. Yoshida

Along with Oshima, Yoshihige (Kiju) Yoshida was a prominent figure of the Japanese New Wave, often making films starring his wife, Mariko Okada.  Similarly to the films of the French New Wave, Woman of the Lake is refreshing in its style, chockfull of arresting photographic images and experiments.  In fact, the image may be everything here, as the plot seems to drift away toward the end (or maybe that was just me).  Okada plays a married woman having an affair who allows her partner to take nude photos of her, which subsequently fall into the wrong hands – they are stolen by a stalker who invites her to a rendezvous at a spa town.  She is followed by her lover (and his nonplussed fiancée) who confronts the stalker but she seems inexorably drawn to the latter, eventually heading off with him.  We don’t know what she is seeking, whether she is perpetually unfulfilled, lonely, needing to be sexually desired by others outside of her (staid) relationship with a businessman. In the end, she retrieves the negatives but her transgression is still revealed to her husband (who seems nonplussed).  Moreover, the stalker seems to have found her photographic image more desirable than he finds Okada herself.  Director Yoshida may have something to say about voyeurism, the male gaze, the differences between image and reality, and the growing omni-presence of cameras to document and mediate, but the measured pace of the film, the psychodramatic flute score, and the intense acting styles (particularly by Okada), tend to absorb the viewer’s attention.  In other words, images may start to dominate everything so much so that meaning and purpose begin to get lost. Is there a warning here for the viewer and the viewed?