Pale Flower

In the organizer's words:

乾いた花 Kawaita hana

Director: SHINODA Masahiro
1964, 94 minutes, OmeU, b/w, DCP

This classic film noir has had a lasting impact on the yakuza thriller genre. Based on a novel by Ishihara Shintarô and accompanied by Takemitsu Tôru's cool jazz soundtrack, it is set in the underworld of Tokyo in impressive black-and-white images.

Muraki is a killer and returns to his boss and to gambling after three years in prison. He meets the mysterious Saeko in an illegal club and is attracted to her. He recoups her losses when she loses money, but she still wants to gamble for higher and higher stakes and shows an insatiable desire for intense pleasure and thrills, including driving and drugs. Muraki, on the other hand, is harassed during the day by people from his past. The two lose themselves in a destructive relationship.

Film series
In search of criminals and new images - Japanese films from the 1960s

In the 1960s and 1970s, Japan was in a phase of economic, political and social upheaval, which also had a serious impact on the country's film industry. As a counter-movement to the films of the previously established master directors, works emerged that were in part radically new in their themes and aesthetics and moved beyond the existing pigeonholes.

With seven films made between 1958 and 1968, the series provides an insight into the cinema of the 1960s and presents works by five directors who were among the most important representatives of their time: Imamura Shôhei (1926-2006), Nomura Yoshitarô (1919-2005), Shindô Kaneto (1912-2012), Shinoda Masahiro (*1931) and Suzuki Seijun (1923-2017).

Three Nikkatsu action films by Suzuki Seijun, who is considered an experimental visionary in Japanese film history, can be seen. In his first color film, Imamura Shôhei dissects the archaic relationships of a village community marked by incest. Shindô Kaneto is represented with his impressive global success about the adversities of life. Finally, the crime film by Nomura Yoshitarô shows the dramatic chase after a murderer and with his film noir, Shinoda Masahiro has left a lasting mark on the yakuza thriller genre.

Price information:

Admission free