Karami-ai

The depths of human depravity are laid bare in this fourth of five collaborations between Masaki Kobayashi and the Ninjin Club. With Toru Takemitsu’s jazz score playing on the soundtrack, nervous chaos breaks out behind the cold, high-contrast black-and-white façade when dying businessman Kawahara (So Yamamura) considers dividing his fortune between his three illegitimate children and fobbing off his young wife (Misako Watanabe) with merely the bare minimum. The search for the potential beneficiaries triggers a cascade of intrigue, blackmail and murder within Kawahara’s business and family circles. Playing a secretary initially dutiful and loyal, Keiko Kishi delivers a brilliant performance as she moves from the periphery of this sombre film noir into its centre of gravity, cool and inscrutable. (mg)