Woman Of The Lake

Woman Of The Lake (1966) is Japanese New Wave maestro Kiju Yoshida's adaptation of the Yasunari Kawabata novel of the same name. I recently read Kawabata's novel and this film only tangentially resembles that tale in that it has the same major characters-Miyako (Yoshida's muse Mariko Okada) whom is married to Yuzo (Shinsuke Ashida) and having an affair with Kitano (Tamotsu Hayakawa) and the stalker and protagonist of the novel Gimpei (Shigeru Tsuyuguchi). Miyako allows Kitano to take naked pictures of her. But Ginpei ends up with the photos and blackmails the couple. Ginpei has been watching the affair unfold for several months. Facing what she assumes is blackmail, Miyako meets Ginpei in a distant seaside town.This action is drawn out with long stretches without dialogue as Yoshida lovingly captures the town, the city, and seaside locations with masterful cinematography. There's a film within a film that mirrors the action taking place outside that film. Yoshida has used the story of sexual obsession and loneliness made it his own vision of sexual obsession and loneliness in the postwar economic boom of the 60s in Japan.