Fovea Film Club presents a rare public screening of “Chikamatsu Monogatari” by Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954

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Chikamatsu Monogatari (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954, 102mins)

Fovea Film Club presents a rare public screening of “Chikamatsu Monogatari” by kenji Mizoguchi. Mizoguchi directed almost 100 films between 1923 and 1956 and is widely acknowledged as a master of the form. Chikamatsu Monogatari, regarded by some Japenese critics as his most important work, is one of a remarkable series of films he produced in the fifties that established his international reputation - Godard writing in Cahiers du Cinema put him on a par with Eisenstein, Griffith and Renoir. Based on a centuries old tale with roots in real events, Chikamatsu Monogatari [A Tale From Chikamatsu, aka The Crucified Lovers] tells the hauntingly tragic story of a forbidden love affair between a merchant’s wife, Osan (Kyoko Kagawa), and her husband’s employee, Mohei (Kazuo Hasegawa), in an era when the punishment for adultery was crucifixion. We are delighted to be able to give British audiences a chance to rediscover this film, which is also Mizoguchis’ most inventive in terms of sound, thanks to Eureka video who released it, along with several of Mizoguchis’ other key works, on home video for the first time in the UK earlier this year.