• ©1966 Nikkatsu Corporation
  • ©1966 Nikkatsu Corporation
  • ©1966 Nikkatsu Corporation

Carmen from Kawachi

(Kawachi Karumen)

Imported 35mm Print

featuring

Yumiko Nogawa, Koji Wada, Tamio Kawaji, Chikako Miyagi,

Carmen from Kawachi brings the nihilist Suzuki universe to a woman’s life in the decidedly unsentimental education of a provincial factory worker, Tsuyuko, whose rape by two fellow villagers starts her on the road to sexual awareness and, finally, independence. It is a long, picaresque road indeed, meandering from Osaka’s Club Dada through liaisons with a millionaire, a dominatrix, and an action painter—all the while cohabiting with a degenerate if loving roué. The determining encounter, which brings the story full circle, is with a corrupt monk, whose sordid affair with her mother had been for Tsuyuko a primal introduction to sexual hypocrisy and male brutality. Adapting a novel by the author of Akutaro, Suzuki blends satire with melodrama to surrealistic effect. Yumiko Nogawa, the director’s favorite actress, was also featured in Story of a Prostitute and Gate of Flesh. “In his trilogy of women-centered films, Suzuki celebrates his heroines’ fierce sensuality and resilience as a kind of spiritual force in an otherwise amoral . . . universe (James Quandt).

FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Katsumi Miki
Based On
  • from the novel by Toko Kon

Cinematographer
  • Shigeyoshi Mine
Language
  • Japanese
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • B&W
  • 'Scope 35mm
  • 89 mins
Source
  • The Japan Foundation
Permission
  • Nikkatsu