Archive - 10th Five Flavours Film Festival

Guilty of Romance

Koi no tsumi
Japan 2011, 144’
subtitles: Polish and English
director: Sion Sono
screenplay: Sion Sono
cinematography: Sohei Tanikawa
editing: Junichi Ito
music: Yasuhiro Morinaga
cast: Megumi Kagurazaka, Miki Mizuno, Makoto Togashi,Kazuya Kojima, Satoshi Nikaido, Ryûju Kobayashi
producer: Yoshinori Chiba, Nobuhiro Iizuka
production: Django Film, Nikkatsu
language: Japanese
colouration: colour

Awards and festivals

Kinema Junpo Award 2012 - Best Director; Cannes IFF 2011; Karlovy Vary IFF 2011; Helsinki IFF 2011; Pusan IFF 2011; Stockholm IFF 2011; Hong Kong IFF 2011

Film description

Izumi is the ideal straight out of the perfect housewife handbook - very dutiful, fulfilling all of her husband's wishes. The husband is an author of erotic novels, and if there was ever any passion in their relationship, it is long gone with the smell of shoe polish. To escape the boredom of daily chores, Izumi looks for part-time jobs. By chance, she takes part in a photographic casting where, along with a red dress and leopard-print underwear, she gains a new perspective on herself and her body. But exploring the world of sexuality can lead in unexpected directions...

Sono's dark tale uses a shocking form full of black humor and fetishist images to reveal a perverse side of the Japanese society. Balancing between the classic convention of Japanese social cinema, a noire crime story, and a disquieting neon grotesque, the director creates a paradoxical, deeply feminist tale about the dangers of fulfilling the fantasies, both yours and others'. As usual with Sono, despite the emotional story, there are plenty of intercultural references (including Franz Kafka and Gertrude Stein) and the soundtrack masterfully complements the whole. The film is also the finale of the "hate" trilogy, which includes "Love Exposed," and "Cold Fish" (presented at the 5th Five Flavours).

Jagoda Murczyńska

Sion Sono

Born in 1961. Poet, performer, filmmaker, painter, musician. One of the most influential among independent Japanese filmmakers, regularly invited to international festivals, renown for his radical artistic vision, the ability to combine shocking form with apt social critique, and a non-compromising film language.

Selected filmography:

1985 Jestem Sion Sono! / Ore wa Sono Sion da!! / I Am Sion Sono!

2001 Jisatsu sakuru / Suicide Club

2008 Miłość obnażona / Ai no mukidashi / Love Exposure

2010 Tsumetai nettaigyo / Cold Fish

2013 Zabawmy się w piekle / Jigoku de naze warui / Why Don't You Play in Hell

2014 Tokyo Toraibu / Tokyo Tribe

2015 Love & Peace

2015 Shinjuku suwan / Shinjuku Swan Kabukicho Skauto Sabaibaru

2015 Riaru onigokko / Tag

2015 Gwiazda szeptów / Hiso hiso boshi / The Whispering Star

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