Woman With Red Hair
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Tue 22 February 2005 // 20:00
WOMAN WITH RED HAIR
(Tatsumi Kumashiro / 1979 / Japan / 35mm / time+cert tbc)
(Tues 22nd / 8pm / £4/3)
A mysterious hitchhiker is picked up by a thuggish, macho construction worker. They return to his flat and embark on an obsessive (bordering upon hysterical) erotic relationship in an attempt to escape their bleak, working class lives. The narrative's strong sense of claustrophobia is further heightened by constant rain outside and a chorus of moaning junkies from the room below.
Plays like 'In The Realm Of The Senses' meets 'Five Easy Pieces'. Regardless of it's disreputable roots in the 'Pink' (sex) film genre, Kumashiro's film was ranked as one of the top five releases of 1979 by the prestigious Japanese film journal 'Kinema Jumpo'.
Woman With Red Hair is a work of gritty intelligence, emotional intensity and sublime aesthetic detachment which scratches towards the very core of human sexuality. Unforgivably, Tatsumi Kumashiro remains virtually unknown in the West. He deserves status as one of the greatest Japanese directors of the 1970s. UK CINEMA PREMIERE
(Tatsumi Kumashiro / 1979 / Japan / 35mm / time+cert tbc)
(Tues 22nd / 8pm / £4/3)
A mysterious hitchhiker is picked up by a thuggish, macho construction worker. They return to his flat and embark on an obsessive (bordering upon hysterical) erotic relationship in an attempt to escape their bleak, working class lives. The narrative's strong sense of claustrophobia is further heightened by constant rain outside and a chorus of moaning junkies from the room below.
Plays like 'In The Realm Of The Senses' meets 'Five Easy Pieces'. Regardless of it's disreputable roots in the 'Pink' (sex) film genre, Kumashiro's film was ranked as one of the top five releases of 1979 by the prestigious Japanese film journal 'Kinema Jumpo'.
Woman With Red Hair is a work of gritty intelligence, emotional intensity and sublime aesthetic detachment which scratches towards the very core of human sexuality. Unforgivably, Tatsumi Kumashiro remains virtually unknown in the West. He deserves status as one of the greatest Japanese directors of the 1970s. UK CINEMA PREMIERE