Many films have drawn from classic Japanese theatrical forms, but none with such shocking cinematic effect as director Masahiro Shinoda’s Double Suicide. In this striking adaptation of a bunraku puppet play (featuring the music of famed composer Toru Takemitsu), a paper merchant sacrifices family, fortune, and ultimately life for his erotic obsession with a prostitute. —The Criterion Collection
Masahiro Shinoda is one of the most prominent filmmakers of the Japanese New Wave, along with Nagisa Oshima and Shohei Imamura. While Oshima’s films were often a venue for political provocation and Imamura’s work seemed to be a bawdy refutation of Yasujiro Ozu’s refined passivity, Shinoda’s movies detail the spiritual emptiness of post-war Japanese life and search for some essence of the Japanese character.
Shinoda was born into one of the most illustrious families in central Gifu Prefecture in 1931. His ancestors were large landowners and village leaders of a small town that is now part of Gifu City. They also had a long literary and cultural heritage. His great uncle was the model for the main character in one of Toson Shimazaki’s novels, and Shinoda’s cousin is one of Japan’s leading abstract calligraphers. As a child, Shinoda was studious, applying himself to mathematics and physics; but by the end of World War II, he experienced the same sort of bitter disillusionment as… read more
Owes too much to theatre to be called cinema. A tale of obsession and passions that drive/make us weak and fragile.You must be in the mood to realy appreciate.
Now I understand why people get cross when films are projected in the wrong aspect ratio. Saw this with the ends cropped off, and boy does it make a difference.
You saw this with the ends cropped? How? The film has a very conservative aspect ratio, 1:33 is the quoted aspect ratio. I saw this at the cinema and it was a very modest rectangle, very narrow. It was always intended as a narrow aspect ratio. It would be 1:37 at the widest but MUBI states 1:33.
A rare and remarkable interview with Masahiro Shinoda. Plus: “Bronson!” and news of several projects in the works.
As a sidebar to the New York Film Festival, the Film Society of Lincoln Center is currently running a retrospective of the great and underappreciated
An excellent film, Shinoda uses the form of a banraku puppet play to rigidly enforce the rules of society on the main couple. The cinematography in this film is exceptional, with beautiful shots. You… read review