Event

AFFAIRS WITHIN WALLS

Dir. Wakamatsu Kji, 1965
Japan. 90 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

In 1965, this Pink Film one of the early pioneers of the genre was entered into the Berlin Film Festival, to the great shame of the Japanese government. The submission occurred without the endorsement of Eiren, the Motion Picture Producers of Japan, who did not recommend independent films to international film festivals. Nonetheless, the film was screened abroad and was one of the first Pink Films to do so. This succès de scandale gave Pink Film a certain respectability and credibility, as did its Michelangelo Antonioni-like aesthetic and politically-charged narrative. The film is set within the confines of a middle-class apartment complex, or danchi, outside of Tokyo; voyeuristically surveying the intrigues of several apartment units, the film paints a grim (albeit beautiful) portrait of the consumerist culture of postwar Japan. Particularly notable is the film's shocking depiction of a man with a keloid scar from Hiroshima's atomic bomb. The result is a provocative but understated portrait of this time period, nestled within the tumultuous first few years of Japan's economic growth.