Only On Mondays
Getsuyôbi no Yuka
Japan
1964
94 Min
Black and White
Japanese
Directed by Ko Nakahira. With Mariko Kaga, Akira Nakao, Takeshi Kato. Yuka is a “good-time girl” from Yokohama who is persuaded by her papa to sleep with a foreign business executive so that he can close an important deal. Nakahira presents a shrewdly observed portrait of a modern, sexually assertive woman—an unsettling character for a changing but still patriarchal society. 93 min. – MoMA note: this film played under the title of Monday Girl for the MoMA’s Japanese film retrospective in 2005.
This film should really have more attention. And Mariko Kaga isn't hard to look at either.