The Affair
The recent death of Japanese filmmaker Kiju Yoshida, a major figure of the "Japanese New Wave", is an opportunity to present the copy of his film Jo-en preserved in our collections. Made in 1967, during the director's most prolific decade and two years before his famous Eros + Massacre, Jo-en is adapted from a novel by Masaaki Tashihara. Jo-en is a fine example of Yoshida's sober - yet daring approach. The film complete a serie of dramas in which he portrays modern women's characters with the talent and grace of Mariko Okida, his wife and muse. It was one of the first works produced by the Gendai Eigasha company, which the director had just founded.
A young married woman, traumatized by the accidental death of her mother, seeks to establish a relationship with her mother's former lovers.
Yoshishige Yoshida
Born in 1933 in the Japanese city of Fukui, Yoshishige Yoshida, known as Kiju Yoshida, was marked during his childhood by the bombings at the end of the war, which did not spare his house. His family moved to Tokyo, where Yoshida studied literature. He joined the Shochiku studios in 1955 and directed his first film in 1960. In the following years, he became one of the leading figures of what would be called the "Japanese New Wave". Following a conflict with Shochiku, he founded his own production company, Gendai Eigasha, in 1966. This is how he made his avant-garde films, including Eros + Massacre, which earned him international recognition. After a long absence, spent in Mexico and during which he shot mainly documentaries for television, he returned to fiction films in the 1980s and was honored by many international festivals. After another absence of several years, he directed his last film, Women in the Mirror, in 2002.
