"Violence at Noon"
1966
Directed by Nagisa Oshima

After investigating the case history of a rapist, Nagisa Oshima created one of the most effective crime films while transcending the genre. The story unfolds through the recollections of two women--the criminal's wife and one of his victims--strangely united in an effort to protect the rapist from capture. Their despair is linked to that of the rapist himself, and ultimately to the failure of the socialist movement in postwar Japan. Oshima masterfully demonstrates the ways in which the compulsion to crime and self-destruction reflects the pathology of the society in which the criminal and victim lives. With Saeda Kawaguchi, Akiko Koyama, Kei Sato and Matsuhiro Toura. Japanese with English subtitles.
100 minutes.