Intentions of Murder (Imamura, 1964)

[Smeraldina Rima]

Kinema Junpo film watch

Intentions of Murder is this month's film, still going through the top twelve of the KJ 1999 critics' list:

1. The Seven Samurai (1954) (Dec)
2. Floating Clouds (1955) (Nov)
3. Straits of Hunger (1965) (Oct)
4. Tokyo Story (1953) (Sep)
5. The Sun Legend of the End of the Tokugawa Era (1957) (Aug)
6. Rashomon (1950) (Jul)
7. Intentions of Murder (1964) (Jun)
8. The Yakuza Papers, Vol. 1: Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1973) (May)
9. Twenty-Four Eyes (1954) (Apr)
10. Ugetsu (1953) (Mar)
11. Ikiru (1952) (Feb)
12. Life of Oharu (1952) (Jan)

In the 2009 critics' list it was voted the eighteenth best Japanese film.

In the readers' list from 2009 it was voted the hundred and twenty-seventh best Japanese film (with three other Imamura films voted ahead of it).

In the 1964 KJ year-end list it was voted the fourth best Japanese film of the year. Uchida's Straits of Hunger (1965), third in the retrospective list we're using, seems to have been classed as a 1964 film and was one place behind:

1.    Woman In the Dunes (1964)
2.    Kwaidan (1964)
3.    The Scent of Incense (1964)
4.    Intentions of Murder (1964)
5.    Straits of Hunger (1965)
6.    Echigo Tsutsuishi Oyashirazu (1964)
7.    Kizudarake No Sanga (1964)
8.    Sweet Sweat (1964)
9.    Vengeance (1964)
10.    Could I But Live (1964)
11.    Onibaba (1964)
12.    Teigin jiken: Shikeishu (1964)
13.    The Scarlet Camellia (1965)
14.    Hiko shonen (dir. Kazuo Kawabe)
15.    Pale Flower (1964)
16.    Ansatsu (1964)
17.    Same (1964)
18.    Kuruwa sodachi (1964)
19.    Aa Bakudan (1964)
19.    The Crest of Man (1964)
19.    Yearning (1964)
19.    Niju-issai no chichi (dir. Noboru Nakamura)
23.    Brand of Evil (1964)
24.    Otto ga mita 'Onna no kobako' yori (1964)
24.    You Can Succeed, Too (1964)
26.    Sara no mon (dir. Seiji Hisamatsu)
26.    Fight, Zatoichi, Fight (1964)
26.    Manji (1964)
26.    Miyamoto Musashi: The Duel At Ichijoji (1964)
30.    The Sandal Keeper (1964)

Just realised that Pigs and Battleships (1961) recommended last month by zomgmouse was also directed by Imamura so that might be worth watching following on from other yakuza films. Vengeange is Mine (1979) is the most popular with the KJ readers (#21). Would be interested to read what you already know and think about Imamura's films and then whatever you make of Intentions of Murder if you get the chance to watch or rewatch it. Also keen to read anything you'd like to write about Japanese films in 1964 or the 1960s that might help to put the film and its reputation in context.

There's a version of the film here: https://archive.org/details/intentions-of-murder

Summary taken from the above link:

Spoiler alert

Sadako (Masumi Harukawa), cursed by generations before her and neglected by her common-law husband, falls prey to a brutal home intruder. But rather than become a victim, she forges a path to her own awakening. This disturbing and pitiless evocation of domestic drudgery and sexual violence is also a fascinating, unsentimental account of one woman's determination. Filled with director Shohei Imamura's characteristic flashbacks and dream sequences, Intentions of Murder is a gripping, audacious portrait of a woman coming into her own in a man's world.

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[Herbert Ashe]

Jacoby:



David Desser on the film (spoilery):

Spoiler alert

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Seen about half Imamura's films, including this; my undoubted favourite is his last, Warm Water Under A Red Bridge. Notable that this is the only film from Japanese New Wave on the list; I don't know how significant this is, or just the vagaries of these sort of polls and this having acquired some sort of consensus position as his best (or most representative) film.

[Smeraldina Rima]

Cheers. Which new wave films would you recommend to start with, or to watch in a certain order, besides Imamura and Oshima? I watched Velvet Hustler and two of Suzuki's 'borderless' colourful yakuza films last month but am not sure where they stand in relation to the new wave. Didn't get round to Branded to Kill which is recommended across most yakuza film and new wave lists and was one of the films I was looking to watch after some more mainstream yakuza films. It looked like that, Pale Flower and Pigs and Battleships (the black and white ones) would be closer to this and more appealing.

How well is the new wave represented in the 1964 list? These are the others that are mentioned in recent English language lists: 1. Woman In the Dunes; 11. Onibaba; 15. Pale Flower. And in the magazine readers' list where Intentions of Murder was a long way down, what's the most popular film that would be described as a new wave film? https://mubi.com/lists/japanese-movies-all-time-best-200-kinejun-readers

Desser writes in those pages you posted that the plot is a 'variation on the pink film in which the woman falls in love with the rapist'. For anyone who might be able to answer: How common is that plot in pink films? How are those films viewed/judged by their fans and in general? Is there much of an ethical defence made for them? Or if it's case by case and not fair to judge sweepingly, any particular films you would recommend? And does anyone know of any feminist criticism of Intentions of Murder or writing about the film by Japanese women or non-Japanese women? Did any women direct films associated with the new wave? (I think at least four of the six films in the KJ list so far have depicted sexual abuse of women and I think the next film Rashomon does too.)

Questions about the film:

What was Sadako reading early on? It seemed like she was hearing criticism in her head before reading from a book mentioning health, smoking, women and men.

There were some inner conversations that were subtitled but other more confusing bits with unsubtitled voices murmuring through scenes. What was that (about) and if they are audible are there subtitles or a transcript?

What did you make of the last flashback?

What do you think of/about the characters, especially Hiraoko?

Did the cinematographer, Shinsaku Himeda, make any films that stand out apart from his films with Imamura?

I enjoyed the film - in large part thanks to Himeda's work - and thought that the Tokyo dream and all of the snowy scenes, especially the long one at the end with Yoshiko losing her glasses, the music and the switch to this view



would help it stick in my mind most, while some other visual surprises like the iron reflection and last scene with Yoshiko were tonally different, maybe even a bit silly and distracting but not necessarily wrong for the film. It reminded me a bit of Brief Encounter because it has trains in it and a different kind of brief encounter and then a return to the family. But I saw Brief Encounter recently and then also thought the ending of Walkabout was quite similar because it was in my head.

[Herbert Ashe]

Other key directors are Yoshida Kiju/Yoshishige, Shinoda Masahiro, and Wakamatsu Koji; adjacent/sympathetic: Masumura Yasuzo (who predates somewhat). Hani Susumu and Ogawa Shinsuke seem to be the major figures (going by Desser) that I'm ignorant of.

Desser's Eros Plus Massacre (named after the Yoshida film) is a good place to start, although the filmography is probably somewhat out of date as it's pre-internet and the films of the period are much more accessible by various means. I've no way seen enough to give much of a guide, but I'll pick out a couple:

Shinoda, as well as Pale Flower, I've only seen Assassination (can't remember) and Killers On Parade (absurdly fun and cartoonish crime-yakuzaish film, although maybe not that NW relevant)
Yoshida I'm sure is the most difficult of the New Wave directors; after his studio pictures he went independent to make the films he wanted to. I'm wasn't fully enamoured of his 60s films on the whole; I've watched Eros + Massacre several times and find it a bit baffling/amazing in fairly equal measure, currently think either that or Heroic Purgatory are his best if you fancy diving into the deep end.
Wakamatsu is a fascinating figure, get a flavour if him from his Sight & Sound obit. Try Go! Go! Second Time Virgin or Season of Terror, for that desolate fag-end of the 60s.
Masumura was eclectic and inconsistent but was probably the first significant guy bringing in what might now be seen as a 1960s or New Wave energy* (I've seen analogies drawn between him and Sam Fuller or Nicholas Ray, if that's useful). Really I'd pick anything by him that sounds interesting. Not strictly a New Wave figure but adjacent.
_{* along with the Sun Tribe films, especially Crazed Fruit}

I had a cursory look into the 1964 list. Seems mostly a mix of post-war filmmakers and various studio genre pictures (with a Naruse masterpiece down in =19); Manji is Masumura. But e.g. Oshima, Wakamatsu, Yoshida, I think all really got going the second half of the decade.

And in the magazine readers' list where Intentions of Murder was a long way down, what's the most popular film that would be described as a new wave film? https://mubi.com/lists/japanese-movies-all-time-best-200-kinejun-readers

Probably The Insect Woman (Imamura, 1963) at #58. Suzuki has Fighting Elegy at #80, then Shinoda's Double Suicide (#89). That's all I noticed in the top 100.

Desser writes in those pages you posted that the plot is a 'variation on the pink film in which the woman falls in love with the rapist'. For anyone who might be able to answer: How common is that plot in pink films? How are those films viewed/judged by their fans and in general? Is there much of an ethical defence made for them? Or if it's case by case and not fair to judge sweepingly, any particular films you would recommend? And does anyone know of any feminist criticism of Intentions of Murder or writing about the film by Japanese women or non-Japanese women? Did any women direct films associated with the new wave? (I think at least four of the six films in the KJ list so far have depicted sexual abuse of women and I think the next film Rashomon does too.)

Did you see this special on mubi? I didn't care for Blue Film Woman or Woman Hell Song, but Inflatable Sex Doll is pretty out-there and feel very much like a post-New Wave film. (if no-one else does, I'll have a bash at responding to a couple of your other points re: pinku at some point)

Not aware of any Japanese women directors in the 60s at all, with the exception of Tanaka Kinuyo.

[Smeraldina Rima]

Thanks. I hadn't seen that group on Mubi. Having seen that the selected films were all made after Intentions of Murder I was reading a bit about the genre and was surprised to see that it only really started between 1962 and 1964. I wonder how established the falling in love with a rapist plot type was in the early pink films up to 1964 and how much the alternative plot in Intentions of Murder builds and subverts strong audience expectations or perhaps represents one variation that - as a plot at least - might also be compatible with pink film conventions, with the new role Sadako adopts at home standing out more than her behaviour with Hiraoko. And whether people watching in 1964 would have compartmentalised pink films and Imamura films separately.

The Wiki page highlights another Imamura film relating to the porn films made before pink films, mentioning that 'until the early 1960s, graphic depictions of nudity and sex in Japanese film could only be seen in single-reel "stag films," made by film producers such as those depicted in Imamura's film The Pornographers (1966)'.


Do you have any idea why Yearning seems not to have been appreciated at the time/is becoming more popular now (noting that it's not on the 1999 list but #71 on the 2009 list)?

[Herbert Ashe]

...And whether people watching in 1964 would have compartmentalised pink films and Imamura films separately.

This is a good question and I don't know the answer. My hunch is the overlap was small so in that sense, yes. (I'm also wondering if pinkus tended to show at different cinemas, which would impose the compartmentalisation from the off).

(I'll rewatch Intentions soon, I'm interested to watch it in light of your comments now; I watched Insect Woman yesterday. & my memory of the The Pornographers - chaos? And in light of watching the Insect Woman, more weird family dynamics.)

Do you have any idea why Yearning seems not to have been appreciated at the time/is becoming more popular now (noting that it's not on the 1999 list but #71 on the 2009 list)?

Well, 20th out of say 400-500 films (1960 was a peak of Japanese film production, 548 films) is fairly well appreciated, it's just me being a Naruse nut. But I expect by 1964 his films would have been feeling a little familiar and old-fashioned in the contemporary context, especially Yearning which is one of his more melodramatic late films (about his 40th post-war film, his 80-somethingth film in total).

[zomgmouse]

currently overseas with a show but hoping to watch this asap and will catch up on the posts. extremely keen to watch more imamura

[Herbert Ashe]

Watching this a couple of days after Insect Woman was quite effective; or at least it drew some aspects out. Two exploited working class women; one goes into sex work (one familiar strand of pre-60s Japanese Cinema), the other into put-upon lower middle class life (another strand - I note here the emphasis on the 'lower'). Echoes of later Ozu (Imamura, remember, was an assistant for him): the developing consumerism of electric goods (TV, fridge, vacuum cleaner) and the nominal middle-class life (the husband is a librarian, the family owns properties and in-laws or siblings are suggested to be quite well off). However here, in the provinces, there is no real disposable income; there is also the persistence of feudalism (Sadako essentially sold into domestic servitude, and become a 'wife'). And the couple having sex next to their sleeping son was something that would occasionally be implicit in the cramped homes in the 30s-50s home but pretty blunt here.

Forgotten how bold Imamura was stylistically, in these two films at least; on which note:

Did the cinematographer, Shinsaku Himeda, make any films that stand out apart from his films with Imamura?

By https://letterboxd.com/cinematography/shinsaku-himeda/, the 5 he did for Imamura seem to stand out from studio films before and after. Actually he seems to have done some for Tatsumi Kumashiro, who seems to have some reputation from his Roman Pornos (a couple ring a bell, like Ecstasy of the Black Rose, but I don't think I've seen any).

What was Sadako reading early on? It seemed like she was hearing criticism in her head before reading from a book mentioning health, smoking, women and men.

Yes, that was how I took it; there was no obvious transition from one to the other, so I might have to look again at that, and see if there is any hint to the book.

There were some inner conversations that were subtitled but other more confusing bits with unsubtitled voices murmuring through scenes. What was that (about) and if they are audible are there subtitles or a transcript?

These are repeated instances from the early in-flashback scene with the four poor older women (maybe beggars/homeless, feeling rather pre-modern) right? They feel like a somewhat unrealistic intrusion, a bit of a primitive chorus - or was it a dream? The boundary between what was flashback, memory, or dream seemed fluid to me, or I wasn't paying close enough attention. Although it sounded plausibly Japanese to my ears, my hunch would be it was unintelligable or babbling by design (so not subtitled on the criterion edition).

I wonder how established the falling in love with a rapist plot type was in the early pink films up to 1964 and how much the alternative plot in Intentions of Murder builds and subverts strong audience expectations or perhaps represents one variation that - as a plot at least - might also be compatible with pink film conventions, with the new role Sadako adopts at home standing out more than her behaviour with Hiraoko.

This is pretty hypothetical but I see that Intentions is an adaptation of a novel, so I wonder if this pre-dated pink conventions (or was a change by Imamura and his screenwriter).

[Smeraldina Rima]

I'll rewatch Intentions of Murder with that in mind - hadn't realised that the background murmuring was repeating from those flashbacks, or that they might have been unreliable memories or dreams.

I watched Insect Woman and was wondering how much the agrarian reforms affected the plot in a way that we should be following. When the reforms are first mentioned, most of the family discusses the new rights of tenant farmers but I couldn't tell what if any difference this made to their rapidly inflating debt to the land owner; who if anyone from the family then became the owner of some of that land; and how this or the reforms in general affected Nobuku's later farming commune. These might all be things that can be picked up on a second watch.

I liked a lot about the style of the film, the crossing historical/personal storytelling, the mirrored moments with characters changing roles or keeping the same roles after a long time had passed, the phtographs and freeze frames and the music with the sung monologues. I forgot to mention how effective the music towards the end of Intentions of Murder is. Think it might be by the same composer. Here it often put me back in mind of the nature documentary theme with its springyness.

Reading about Imamura I've noticed that a couple of things he said contrasting himself with Ozu and Mizoguchi and opposing the idea of the self-sacrificing women are reflected in most things written about him. The Insect Woman has a marked turning point halfway through and I'm glad that I had already seen Life of Oharu for comparison. I also came across some wider-ranging interviews and his praise for Kawashima as an early new wave hero. Keen to see The Pornographers, A Man Vansishes, some Kawashima, and Hidari's The Far Road if I can find it. I saw that Tanaka's The Eternal Breasts/Forever A Woman is going to be shown in Bristol in July and, while I haven't found anything else about a bigger retrospective, this info indicates there is going to be one in Bristol/London/Edinburgh.

Kinuyo Tanaka's third film as a director is perhaps her finest – a deeply emotional cinematic portrait of Fumiko Nakajo, an ill-fated female tanka poet.

Set on the plains of Hokkaido, it features a fully-committed performance from star Yumeji Tsukioka, whose character deals with the pain of being separated from her son, then suddenly finds herself forced to confront her mortality, whilst at the same time throwing herself wholeheartedly into one last love affair.

This 4K restoration is courtesy of Janus Films. Forever A Woman launches The Films of Kinuyo Tanaka retrospective at Watershed, Edinburgh Film Festival, GFT and BFI Southbank, London.

[Smeraldina Rima]

The scalding and traffic accident scenes in the two films are quite similar, with Tome 'eavesdropping' and Yoshiko spying, and the accidents being filmed so that you see them coming while the women are distracted in front of the danger (indirectly by relatively secure couples), but one causing the death of the child Cathy the other of Yoshiko herself, one with the pan tipping suddenly the other a human body flying up in the road. Not sure how you would best compare the relationships of Midori and George and Cathy/ Sadako and Riichi and Aoki. 

The reason for Tome's eavesdropping is less clear than Yoshiko's motive: maybe it's some mixture of nosiness, voyeurism and her jealousy of the intimacy and comparative security, while the religious leader later puts all her problems down to 'lust'. It also reflects an earlier scene when she noticed someone was watching Chuji sucking pus from her own thigh. It looks like Cathy's death occurs on the same day that Tome is cooking a spicy country stew because the American solider George is meant to be away. So is she hearing Midori with someone else that time? If her eavesdropping is meant to be seen in relation to previous confusing sexual experiences with her father (or step-father) Chuji, it seems like we're also supposed to see the later outburst about the boiling water not being that hot as a traumatic connection to Cathy's death. I think this sort of repetition and variation is done well in a lot of ways besides this and it's interesting that it carries into the later film with Yoshiko being shown similarly before her death and Sadako enjoying the feeling of the silkworm on her thigh recalling Chuji sucking the pus from Tome's thigh.

In the next scene when Tome confesses her sins and shares her troubles with the religious group and says that talking about her life makes her cry, she mentions some things that I don't think had been shown in the film and which implied that we weren't seeing everything that mattered or all of the sexual harassment that Tome endured. At least for example the Chinese restaurant work wasn't shown in the sequence described between the silk mill and the maid work. The following exchange just after Cathy's death and Tome's lowest point was funny:

- While I listened, their mixed-blood child was scalded to death when a pot of stew fell on her.

- What are you doing for her departed spirit?

- All I'm doing is selling cosmetics.

- Not good enough! It's like doing nothing!

[zomgmouse]

only got to watching this yesterday but i was really wowed by it. will try to collect some thoughts soon after reading through everyone else's

just also wanted to add shuji terayama as a new wave filmmaker worth checking out (my favourite of the couple i've seen is Pastoral: To Die in the Country)

[zomgmouse]

coming back to some scattered reflections:

the dazed, feverish walk in the snow creates a barrage of sensation but also somehow cements the unspoken bond between the two

so many trains...

astute use of voiceover, lending us a much-needed internal pov in a story that might otherwise be simply too twisted to process (not that it needs to do this for us but I think it allows for a layered contrast)

thematic exploration very clear, generational misogyny and the like, which lets the stylistic flourishes flourish. but of course nothing is ever simple

great lead performance! the agony, the confusion, the repression, the eventual paces towards self-ownership. conveyed so naturally

Pigs and Battleships is still my favourite I think. Something about the pace and squalor. The only other one of his I've seen was The Pornographers and I liked the book better, but I might have to rewatch it. Have a couple of others of his on my watchlist which I'm sure I'll get to.

[zomgmouse]

Would also like to nominate Hiroshi Teshigahara - I've only seen The Face of Another but hoping to soon watch Pitfall. Philosophical and postmodern work.