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In Japanese with English subtitles

Masahiro Shinoda was only a few years into a remarkable five-decade directing career when he made PALE FLOWER, his most popular and enduring work and the yakuza film by which all others in the genre would be measured. Muraki (played by Ryo Ikebe, some years past his gentler turn in Ozu's EARLY SPRING) has recently been released from a three-year prison stint (for murder, naturally) and cannot help but throw himself, with studied indifference, into the scrum of Yokohama night-life. Meanwhile, the reckless and inscrutable Saeko (Mariko Kaga, giving PALE FLOWER'S scariest and most internalized performance amidst her co-stars' macho smoldering) has taken to haunting yakuza-overseen gambling dens, a notable and disruptive feminine presence in a stiflingly masculine underworld. Immediately drawn to one another, Muraki mentors Saeko in tehonbiki, their game of choice, as she attempts to stave off corrosive and self-destructive boredom and he attempts to keep his homicidal impulses at bay. A master class in widescreen composition from cinematographer Masao Kosugi with a score by legendary avant-garde composer Toru Takemitsu, PALE FLOWER matches its pitch black amour founarrative with hard-as-nails stylistic pyrotechnics and lurid Baudelairean cinematic poetry.

35mm print provided by Janus Films

Cartoon: "Dance Squared" (Danse carrée) (René Jodoin, 1961) – 16mm – 4 min