Setsuo Kobayashi

Like the mystery of carnal attraction, Yasuzô Masumura’s infamous Edogawa Rampo adaptation defies all attempts at classification. Lending an arthouse flair to the fleshy thrills of pinku films, this handsomely grotesque tale of confinement trembles with the pleasure and the pain of erotic obsession.

Images of gruesomely deformed bodies haunt Yasuzô Masumura’s heady anti-war masterpiece, which sidesteps the empty glory of combat to tend to the wounds of the soul. A quivering light in a world dominated by men, Ayako Wakao’s traumatized nurse embodies the horrors that exist beyond the battlefield.