The Films of Yoshishige Yoshida (1965-1967) Volume 3 - NTSC - English Subtitled (3 Disc)

Each disc is English Subtitled
Remastered Video
Japanese audio 2.0

(Disc 1) Woman of the lake – 1966 – B/W 16×9

Eight years into her marriage, Miyako Mizuki (Mariko Okada) looks happy on the outside, but in fact she is not satisfied with her husband, Yuzo (Shinsuke Ashida), who cares about nothing but his career. Miyako has been having an affair with a young interior designer named Kitano (Tamotsu Hayakawa), who in turn has a fiancée named Machie (Keiko Natsu). One night in a hotel, Miyako lets Kitano takes some nude photos of her. On her way back, she is followed by a stranger (Shigeru Tsuyuguchi), and loses her handbag with the film negatives inside while trying to escape. Later at home, Miyako receives a call from the stranger. He uses the negatives to threaten her to follow his instructions and take a train to the north. The stranger is named Ginpei. He was a teacher in a girls’ school, but was expelled because of a scandal with one of his students. As Miyako meets up with Ginpei, she develops a strange attraction towards him.

(Disc 2) The Affair (1963) B/W 16×9

Beautiful young Oriko (Mariko Okada) has an unhappy marriage. Her husband Takashi (Tadahiko Sugano), owner of a securities company, has been having an affair and comes home only once in a week at most. In a poetry party, Oriko meets sculptor Mitsuharu (Isao Kimura), who was one of the lovers of Oriko’s deceased poetess mother. Oriko has been ashamed of her mother’s decadent morality but she now has a strange intimate feeling for Mitsuharu. One day, Oriko goes to the seaside with her sister-in-law Yuko (Shigako Shimegi) and her friends. In the evening, Oriko witnesses Yuko being violated by a construction worker. Yuko first resists the man’s advances but later enjoys in bliss, which in turn ignites Oriko’s suppressed desire. A few days later, Oriko visits the construction worker and tries to persuade him to leave Yuko, only to be violated by the worker herself. However, Oriko doesn’t have the pleasure she expected, but instead sees herself as decadent as her mother. Oriko tells her strange encounters to Mitsuharu, who advises Oriko to have a divorce. The two meet from time to time and develop a Platonic relationship. One day, when Oriko visits Mitsuharu in a hotel room, Takashi suddenly appears and accuses his wife of being unfaithful. Oriko pleads for a divorce but is rejected. However, when Oriko confesses her encounter with the construction worker, her embittered husband promptly agrees to divorce. After that, Oriko makes love to Mitsuharu for the first time. Later, Mitsuharu is crushed by his own giant stone sculpture and suffers from severe injuries, and may be impotent for life. Nevertheless, Oriko insists on taking care of him out of faith and love.

(Disc 3) A Story written with Water (1965) B/W 16×9

The film focuses on Shizuka’s relationship to her son, Shizuo. Shizuka, a widow, is the mistress of Hashimoto Oenzo, a well-to-do banker, while Shizuo is married to his daughter, Yumiko. Shizuka’s relationship to Denzo provides her with no sexual satisfaction, while Shizuo’s relations with Yumiko are similarly unsatisfactory. Mother and son are seen to share the most profound erotic compulsion toward each other, which manifests itself first in a series of flashbacks. Shizuo remembers bathing with his mother; playing by a stream with friends when his mother calls him from a bridge; following his mother to the small house where she carries on her liaison with Denzo (thus telling us that this affair began before his father’s death from tuberculosis); his parents kissing in his father’s hospital bed. Shizuka remembers many of these scenes as well, in addition to her memory of her husband’s final moments; He lay in bed as she removed her clothes give him one final kiss before he died . The erotic compulsion felt by mother and son climaxes when Shizuo goes into his mother’s bedroom carrying a bottle of sleeping pills and talks to her of shinju, lovers’ suicide. He lays his head on her breast; she throws her head back in a swoon of ecstasy, the camera rocking back and forth like a pendulum. A fade to black hides the next activity (including the possibility of incest and then double suicide). The next morning we see that mother and son did not commit suicide as Shizuka and Denzo take a drive to the country in his car. The car is discovered later, crashed into a tree, Denzo dead at the wheel. Shizuka has drowned in the lake, her shoes and umbrella floating on the surface of the water. Shizuo, meanwhile, following the (implied) incest with his mother, has drawn closer to Yumiko. The film’s final shot shows Shizuo clinging tight to Yumiko as they search for Shizuka’s body.