An Innocent Witch

An Innocent Witch (1965) is a late career masterpiece from prolific director Heinosuke Gosho. Until recently it was quite difficult to find English subtitled versions of Gosho, who mostly made melodramas and was a contemporary of Naruse, Ozu, and Mizoguchi-like them he started in the silent period and went on to make film s until the the 60s. So far, from the few films I have seen, I have been most impressed by his late period films. This one feels much more modern and less of a melodramatic film than his earlier efforts. In fact, I find much in common with New Wave wunderkind of the 60s-Shohei Immaura. This film has much in common with Imamura's masterpiece, The Insect Woman: the story of a poor Tohoku girl who becomes a prostitution to support her family in the late 30s as Japan mounts its military campaign in China-which is revealed parallel to the action back in Aomori. The beginning of the film and the end are almost documentary-like in their introduction, expositions, and treatment of Ozoresan (one of the three sacred sites in Japan also known as "Home of the Dead") and the depiction of the itako (mediums who converse with the dead). In this story Ayako (Jitsuko Yoshimura from Imamaura's Pigs and Battle Ships Kaneto Shinto's Onibaba) stars as the innocent girl from Oma, the northern most point of Honshu, who is sold in to prostitution to support her ailing parents. Complications arise as she takes a shine to a young local boy, which ends up having dire consequences. Her bad luck is seen as result of being possessed by evil spirits, so they entreat the itako to help exorcise the spirits to restore Ayako to her original innocent state. It is a much more complex psychodrama than the previous Gosho films I had seen and has a contemporary "1960s-New Wave" feel to the production. It also boasts some great cinematography of the rugged Aomori location settings and an inspired soundtrack by Sei Ikeno, who seems to have done many of the Zatoichi film soundtracks as well. An Innocent Witch was an unexpected gem from a veteran of Japanese cinema in his late career.