A PAGE OF MADNESS | 狂った一頁

JAPAN | 1926 | B&W | DCP | 71’ | NO DIALOGUE

A former sailor takes a job as a caretaker in an asylum, devising a desperate plan to free his imprisoned wife. All he manages to do is sink into a ghostly hallucinogenic universe with her. A century ago, in a world not yet ready for their macabre vision, Teinosuke Kinugasa and his avant-garde fellows of School of New Perceptions penned the manifesto of Japanese horror, a page of untainted madness. With the contribution of Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata to the script, they witnessed the natural continuation of expressionism refracted into a bizarre, paroxysmal nightmare. The relentless montage and the evocative atmosphere of Noh Theatre dissolve the boundaries between reason, guilt, and delirium. Refusing any hint of traditional narrative, the director visualizes the delirium in an inscrutable celluloid poem, which still stands today, iridescent and radioactive, at the foundations of cinematic avant-garde. Thodoris Karamanolis

DIRECTOR: Teinosuke Kinugasa
SCREENWRITERS: Yasunari Kawabata, Teinosuke Kinugasa, Minoru Inuzuka, Banko Sawada
DoP: Kōhei Sugiyama, Eiji Tsuburaya
MUSIC: Minoru Muraoka
PRINCIPAL CAST: Masao Inoue, Yoshie Nakagawa, Ayako Iijima

TEINOSUKE KINUGASA (1896-1982)
Japanese director. He started as an onnagata actor (that is specializing in female roles) before transitioning to directing after women were allowed to work in entertainment. An Oscar winner and holder of the Palme d'Or for the jidaigeki "Gates of Hell" (1954), a genre in which he shone in the later stages of his career.

FILMOGRAPHY (SELECTED)
1958 Shirasagi
1953 Gate of Hell
1952 Dedication of the Great Buddha
1946 Aru yo no tonosama
1928 Crossroads
1926 A Page of Madness