Masumura Attack

[Jasper Sharp]

Someone (I believe it was Stephen Cremin) mentioned at the beginning of the 
year that the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London was planning a large 
retrospective of the works of Yasuzo Masumura. I was just wondering if 
anyone had further details of this event. The ICA failed to reply to my 
email....
I believe that this director has already had a few retrospectives over the 
past few years; in Tokyo, Paris and somewhere in the States. I have been 
eagerly trying to catch up with his work for some time now, because so far 
my only exposure to this fascinating director has been a non-subtitled copy 
of MOJU, an Italian dubbed dupe of JOTAI/VIXEN and a French release of AKAI 
TENSHI/RED ANGEL (at last, a language I understand!) I am really taken with 
Masumura's visual style, and his rather melodratic approach to the material. 
He seems to be a rather overlooked figure in World Cinema, especially when 
you consider that it was his early essays in the late 50s calling for a 
complete rejection of the then current cinematic traditions in Japan that 
set Oshima and the whole Noburu Bagu/Japanese New Wave movement in motion. 
I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it to the London screenings myself, but 
I'd advise anyone who can to do so.

Jasper Sharp
Midnight Eye - japan_cult_cinema
www.midnighteye.com

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