Ballad of Orin / Melody in Gray / Hanare goze Orin (1977)
Drama
This unsentimental Japanese tragedy chronicles the lonely life and quiet death of a blind Geisha girl whose desire for sexual freedom causes her to become an outcast.
Starring: Shima Iwashita, Tomoko Naraoka, Taiji Tonoyama, Jun Hamamura, Tôru Abe, Yoshio Harada
Director: Masahiro Shinoda
Hadaka no shima / The Naked Island (1960)
Drama
The film depicts a small family, a husband and wife and two sons, struggling to get by on a tiny island in the Seto Inland Sea, over the course of a year. They are the island's only occupants, and survive by farming. They must repeatedly carry the water for their plants and themselves in a row boat from a neighboring island…
Starring: Nobuko Otowa, Taiji Tonoyama, Shinji Tanaka, Masanori Horimoto
Director: Kaneto Shindo
In the Realm of the Senses / Ai no korîda (1976)
Crime | Drama | History | Romance
A graphic portrayal of insatiable sexual desire, this film, set in 1936 and based on a true incident, depicts a man and a woman consumed by a transcendent, destructive love while living in an era of ever escalating imperialism and governmental control. Less a work of pornography than of politics, In the Realm of the Senses is a brave, taboo-breaking milestone.
Starring: Tatsuya Fuji, Eiko Matsuda, Aoi Nakajima, Yasuko Matsui, Meika Seri, Taiji Tonoyama
Director: Nagisa Ôshima
