After letting tears flow in the rain by seeing Main Street (1956-also reviewed) in 35MM,I took a look at the listings for the HOME cinema in Manchester, and saw another 35MM coming up, for an extremely obscure title which did not have a single IMDb review, leading to me opening the diary.
Note:The review contains some plot details.
View on the film:
Spreading the pages of Ichiro's diary across the screen, directing auteur Ko Nakahira (who also directed the splendid Danger Pays (1962-also reviewed )) & Stray Cat Rock: Machine Animal (1970-also reviewed) cinematographer Yoshihiro Yamazaki take the diary entries off the page, with a magnetic Japanese New Wave (JNW) Film Noir atmosphere of ultra-stylized half superimposition's glimpsing at the "prey" from Ichiro's notes, refined close-ups on the women whose deaths are framing Ichiro, and shining panning shots following the amateur investigators attempting to overturn Ichiro's conviction.
Stepping into the court with Ichiro, and backed by a dry cured Film Noir score from Bakumatsu Taiyoden (1957-also reviewed) composer Toshiro Mayuzumi, Nakahira closely works with Red Pier (1958-also reviewed) editor on covering the trial with sharp JNW jump-cuts, which fold the court hearing into flashbacks of Ichiro's various liaisons. Paired up to the jump-cuts when away from Ichiro, Nakahira superb freeze frames and JNW long-take wide-shots, that laid bare the seediness of Ichiro's activities.
Putting the diary together from several novels by Masako Togawa, (who gives a haunted behind the eyes debut performance as Ichiro's wife Taneko) Tatsuo Asano binds the books together with an impressive skillfulness, where the biggest clues to the mystery come from two sex workers, (one of whom is gay,and shown in a sympathetic light) who open the case to a chilling twist ending.
Presenting thumbnail sketches of the dates Ichiro, (played with an excellent chewed and spit out bitterness by Noboru Nakaya) goes on, the screenplay by Asano presents a post-war Japan deep in Film Noir pessimism, where Ichiro treats everyone as disposable, with his only interest being to fill the Film Noir loner void consuming him. Maturing not making excuses for Ichiro's actions, Asano explores in splintered, harrowing flashbacks that began the disintegration of a marriage, which Asano decides to record, by writing a hunter's diary.
