Manji (1964)

Manji (1964) – Y. Masumura

Another strange film from Yasuzô Masumura.  The film opens with Sonoko (Kyôko Kishida) telling us (and presumably her psychiatrist) the story of her infatuation and love affair with Mitsuko (Ayako Wakao), a younger model who she met at an art class.  The remainder of the film is one long flashback to the events that transpired, with only occasional cut-ins to remind us that this is a narrative from Sonoko.  Although married, Sonoko throws herself passionately into her secret trysts with Mitsuko and soon she is brazenly and openly telling her husband Kotaro (Eiji Funakoshi) about the affair.  He demands her to stop.  She resists but when Mitsuko reveals that she has a fiancé Watanuki (Yûsuke Kawazu) and that she may be pregnant by him, Sonoko decides to cut things off.  Until Mitsuko and Watanuki begin to play games, luring Sonoko back into the relationship and encouraging Kotaro as well.  The characters here are all unabashedly driven by intense passions, sexual perhaps, but there is something even more inexplicable about Mitsuko that drives them all toward her. Indeed, they are so wrapped up in her mind games and their silly blood oaths (and eventually ritualistic sleeping-draught taking) that they seem immature, like children or teenagers playing in a fantasy world of their own making.  Almost from the start of the film, the characters speak of their love as something they would die for and Mitsuko repeatedly asks Sonoko to kill her because her love is too strong. It is strange – and perhaps it is linked to Japanese culture? At any rate, Masumura’s widescreen compositions are often beautiful with the characters sometimes constrained to just part of the screen with the remainder filled with a richly textured space (either a wall, latticed stairs, some textile, or some other rectangular shape); no doubt this adds psychological tension to the presentation (as does the occasional nudity, potentially shocking for the time).  Yet, despite all this, I found myself impatient at the silliness of it all.