FILM SCREENINGS

Double Suicide

1969. Japan. Directed by Masahiro Shinoda. Screenplay by Taeko Tomioka, Toru Takemitsu, Shinoda, based on a play by Monzaemon Chikamatsu. With Kichiemon Nakamura, Shima Iwashita, Hosei Komatsu. In his radical updating of Chikamatsu’s classic bunraku play, Shinoda explores the familiar tension between familial duty and individual longing through a pair of desperately passionate young lovers sealed in a doomed fate. Shinoda’s brilliant theatrical conceits include sets that collapse to reveal their artifice, and the manipulations of hooded puppeteers who intervene in their characters’ destinies. Courtesy Janus Films. In Japanese; English subtitles. 104 min.