The Stranger within a Woman
(Onna no naka ni iru tanin)
With Kobayashi Keiju, Aratama Michiyo, Kusabue Mitsuko.
Japan, 1966, 35mm, black & white, 102 min.
Japanese with English subtitles.
Print source: National Film Archive of Japan
With its violence largely offscreen, Naruse’s noir patiently and coolly constructs an unnerving labyrinth in which none of the characters are what they seem. Absorbing the news of his friend’s wife’s accident, Isao—an unassuming husband and father played with precise understatement by Kobayashi Keiju—responds with a taciturn stoicism that grows increasingly unsettling as details of the tragedy are uncovered, gradually transforming Isao, his wife and his friend—not to mention the film’s audience. Victims, perpetrators, accomplices and bystanders switch perspectives and roles as meaning becomes malleable according to each person’s changing psychological needs. While the men come into focus, it is the unknowable women of the title who determine the course of this ever-shifting narrative, even from beyond the grave, and do so with unexpected perversion. – Brittany Gravely
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
Sound of the Mountain
Anzukko
Mother
Sincerity
Summer Clouds
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
Summer Clouds
The Stranger within a Woman
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
Traveling Actors
Scattered Clouds
Scattered Clouds
Flowing
A Wanderer’s Notebook
Repast
Every-Night Dreams
Apart From You
No Blood Relation
Street Without End
The Road I Travel with You / Avalanche
Every-Night Dreams
