Category: Non-English Film

After she was horrendously disfigured during a car accident, Édith Scob’s doctor father Pierre Brasseur, with the help of his dedicated assistant Alida Valli, vowed to restore her face by kidnapping young women to serve as involuntary donors. A fascinating bit of body horror, it obviously has a lot in common with The Face of Another. Édith Scob projects an engrossing sensitivity as a deeply damaged individual that is extraordinary for the fact that she spends the majority of her time behind a mostly immovable mask that only allows for expression through the eyes. 

In this loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, illegitimate son Toshiro Mifune concocts an elaborate revenge plot to get back at the business executives whom he blames for his father’s suicide. Bringing the epic setting to post-war Japanese corporate culture, Kurosawa frames every shot with powerful deliberation. The tale rests firmly on Mifune’s more than capable shoulders, perfectly portraying a stoicism that barely conceals a seething rage underneath. The actor is not without support as the entire cast also thoroughly bring their characters to life.   

Three unconnected tales make up this narrative about relationships and the ripples they cause. The first involves a young woman, Kotone Furukawa, who finds out her close friend has begun seeing her ex-boyfriend. In the second, a young man sends his married girlfriend Katsuki Mori to seduce a former professor in hopes of starting a scandal. Lastly, a middle aged woman in town for her high school reunion, Fusako Urabe, mistakes another woman for a fellow student. Each story was better than the previous, but they all touch poignantly on the consequences of even innocuous mistakes.

Impoverished artist René Lefèvre is thrilled to discover that he has won the Dutch lottery, only to have his hopes dashed when he learns the winning ticket is in the pocket of a coat his girlfriend Annabella had given to a mysterious thief who appeared in her apartment. Thus begins a race around the city as Lefèvre and his best frenemy Jean-Louis Allibert try to locate the jacket which has since been sold to a visiting Italian opera star. I was really surprised that such a fun, energetic musical was produced so early in the sound era, especially in French by a director who was reticent at the advent of sound pictures.