PEONY LANTERN GHOST STORY (Satsuo Yamamoto, 1968) PEONY LANTERN GHOST STORY aka Kaidan botan-dôrô Dir. Satsuo Yamamoto, 1968 Japan, 88 min. In Japanese with English subtitles. SUNDAY, OCTOBER 5 – 5 PM FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10 – 10 PM MONDAY, OCTOBER 27 – 7:30 PM “August 13 is the first day of the Festival of Obon, when people honor their ancestors – and when the spirits of the dead return.” Hagiwara Shinzaburou (Kôjirô Hongô) is disowned by his upper-class family for refusing to agree to a marriage of convenience. He returns to his life as a schoolteacher in a working-class village. On the first day of the Festival of Obon, he is approached by a beautiful young woman, Otsuyu, and her maid, Oyone, who impart to him their tragic tale. He falls in love with Otsuya, but his health steadily deteriorates after each tryst. Even after realizing that Otsuyu is a ghost and that the affair will soon kill him, he cannot resist her. At the insistence of the priest and his own schoolchildren, Hagiwara agrees to be locked in the village temple until the end of the Festival, but Otsuyu will not be so easily thwarted. Kaidan Botan-Dôrô dates back to at least the Meiji Period. Director Yamamoto, an outspoken member of the Japanese Communist Party, infuses the ghost story, initially a Buddhist moral tale, with political substance. The film expands its focus to take in the workings of the community, and instead of a lone priest protecting Hagiwara from the ghosts, as in the original tale, the whole village is enlisted to help. Hagiwara has refused his family fortune to teach poor children, but it is greed which leads to the final tragedy. _______ FOLLOW LIPSapp Hits56 Radio _______ FB: r-js/1rlggeQ / TW: r-js/1us3SdS / Listen to LIPSapp Hits56 Radio r-js/1dOIQ18 #thewho #beatles #elvis #jimihendrix #dylan
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 20:37:00 +0000