Cinema
The Insect Woman
にっぽん昆虫記
Shohei Imamura · 1963
Synopsis
Tome is born in 1918 into a poor peasant family in the Tōhoku region and grows up with a man who abuses her, according to Offi. She refuses the fate in store for her and leaves for the city, where she works in a factory and sends money for the education of her daughter, who has stayed in the countryside. Starvation wages push her towards prostitution; L'Étrange Festival describes four decades in the life of a woman who tries to escape her condition, across the history of the country.
Context
The screenplay is by the director and Hasebe Keiji, the music by Mayuzumi Toshirō, according to L'Étrange Festival. Produced and distributed by Nikkatsu, the film was released in Japan on 16 November 1963. It was named best film of the year by Kinema Junpō and by the Blue Ribbon, and its lead actress, Hidari Sachiko, plays the character from youth to maturity.
Who it is for
Two hours in black and white on forty years of a woman's destiny, from the poor countryside to the brothels of Tokyo.
Prizes and reception
Silver Bear for best actress at Berlin in 1964 for Hidari Sachiko, it was re-released in France in 2018.
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