Rengoku eroica

Shōda Rikiya works as an engineer for Japan’s Atomic Agency. One day, his wife Nanako returns home with a mysterious teenage girl called Ayu, who claims to be Rikiya’s daughter. A man pretending to be the girl’s father arrives to get her back, but he turns out to be a comrade from the revolutionary movement that Rikiya had joined when he was in college. As his everyday life is turned upside down, Rikiya is confronted with his past as a radical revolutionary.
This second film of Yoshida’s trilogy about historical events in 20th-century Japan was, like the other films of the trilogy, made in collaboration with the Art Theater Guild of Japan on a very low budget. Yoshida’s arguably most difficult and enigmatic film is a mesmerizing exploration of political discourses in postwar Japan.
Lacking a clear-cut sequential storyline, the film intersperses various images of sex, politics and revolution and pushes the dazzling cinematic language of Yoshida’s previous film EROS + MASSACRE even further, characterized by a labyrinthine narrative structure, radically decentered compositions and fascinatingly mannered photography. With this esoteric avant-garde film, brimming with Yoshida’s originality, the director also reached his outer limits. (Roland Domenig)

All retrospective films that will be shown at the Filmmuseum after the Viennale - from 2.11. - can of course also be reserved as usual at filmmuseum.at or by calling 01/533 70 54 and purchased at the box office of the Austrian Film Museum. The prices of the Austrian Film Museum apply.

Yoshida Kijū: OOD-FOR-NOTHING (1960), BLOOD IS DRY A.K.A BLOODY THIRST (1960), BITTER END OF A SWEET NIGHT (1961), AKITSU SPRING (1962), 18 WHO CAUSE A STORM A.K.A. 18 ROUGHS (1963), A STORY WRITTEN WITH WATER (1965), WOMAN OF THE LAKE (1966), IMPASSE (1967), THE AFFAIR (1967), AFFAIR IN THE SNOW (1968), FAREWELL TO THE SUMMER LIGHT (1968), EROS + MASSACRE (1969), HEROIC PURGATORY (1970), COUP D’ETAT (1973), A PROMISE (1986), WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1988), WOMEN IN THE MIRROR (2002), BEM-VINDO A SÃO PAULO (2004, Episode)