is a 1967 Japanese
drama film
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...
directed by
Yoshishige Yoshida
, also known as Kijū Yoshida, was a Japanese film director and screenwriter.
Life and career
Graduating from the University of Tokyo, where he studied French literature, Yoshida entered the Shōchiku studio in 1955 and worked as an assistant t ...
. It is based on
Masaaki Tachihara's novel ''Shiroi keshi''.
Plot
One year after her mother died in an accident, Oriko returns to writing poetry which she had given up when she married her husband Takashi. At a gathering of fellow writers, she meets Mitsuharu, a sculptor and former lover of her late mother. Oriko had despised her mother's changing affairs, although she had been a widow by then, and is herself blamed by her husband for her coldness. Mitsuharu informs her that he wasn't her mother's last lover, but that she had left him for a labourer, with whom she was seen drunk on the day when she was fatally hit by a truck.
One night, Oriko witnesses her husband's sister Yuko having sex with a construction worker in a hut, which she considers rape and reports to the police. Later, she returns to the worker's hut, where he tells her outright that she speculated on sleeping with him as well. He makes a forceful advance, to which Oriko, first reluctant, finally gives in. Oriko meets with Mitsuharu again, confessing that when she was younger, she was not only jealous of him as a daughter, but also as a woman. When she tells him of her encounter with the worker, Mitsuharu is outraged and hurt. Takashi learns of Oriko's meetings with Mitsuharu, but it is not before a confrontation between him, Oriko and Mitsuharu that Oriko and Mitsuharu start an affair.
When Mitsuharu's spine is broken after being buried under one of his stone sculptures, Oriko, still married, vows to stay with him, although it is unclear if he will gain back his ability to walk and his virility. In one of her recurring fantasies about her mother's accident, Oriko now sees herself as the victim and the construction worker at the truck's wheel. Some time later, she sees the worker at a train station, watching unmoved as he enters a train.
Cast
*
Mariko Okada
is a Japanese stage and film actress who starred in films of directors Mikio Naruse, Yasujirō Ozu, Keisuke Kinoshita and others. She was married to film director Yoshishige Yoshida.
Biography
Okada was born the daughter of silent film actor ...
as Oriko
*
Isao Kimura
, also known as Kō Kimura, was a Japanese actor. He entered the Haiyūza theatre troupe in 1946. He appeared in several films directed by Akira Kurosawa, including ''Stray Dog'' (1949) as Yusa the criminal, and ''Seven Samurai'' (1954) as Kats ...
as Mitsuharu Noto
* Yoshie Minami as Shigeko, Oriko's mother
* Tadahiko Kanno as Takashi Furuhuta
* Shigako Shimegi as Yuko, Furuhata's sister
*
Etsushi Takahashi
was a Japanese actor from Kishiwada, Osaka Prefecture. Takahashi often worked with Kihachi Okamoto and Satsuo Yamamoto.
After graduating Rikkyo University, Takahashi joined NHK acting school. In 1964, he joined Bungakuza Theatre Company's act ...
as construction worker
Reception
In his book ''A Hundred Years of Japanese Film'', film historian
Donald Richie
Donald Richie (17 April 1924 – 19 February 2013) was an American-born author who wrote about the Japanese people, the culture of Japan, and especially Japanese cinema. Although he considered himself primarily a film historian, Richie also dir ...
saw ''The Affair'' as a film of social concern about a woman's fight against her own sensual nature, "formally shot and edited with much economy".
Legacy
''The Affair'' was screened at the
Centre Pompidou
The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...
,
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, in 2008 and at the
Harvard Film Archive
The Harvard Film Archive (HFA) is a film archive and cinema located in the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dedicated to the collection, preservation and exhibition of film, the HFA houses a c ...
in 2009
as part of retrospectives on Yoshida's work.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Affair, The
1967 films
1967 drama films
Japanese drama films
Films based on Japanese novels
Films directed by Yoshishige Yoshida
1960s Japanese-language films
1960s Japanese films