45 A Story Written with Water

[swo17]

25 Mar UK, single pressing

[tenia]

The cover reminds me way too much the Criterion one for The Long Day Closes.

[zedz]

Amazing film! I hope it sells out fast and they're forced to licence all those other incredible Yoshidas.

[Peacock]

Oh my God! This is amazing news. I hope it sells well and leads more people to Yoshida’s films so we can get even more released soon. Thank you Radiance.

[ryannichols7]

I am thankful Fran has been revisiting a good number of directors he took on for more ambitious projects at Arrow that maybe didn't do as well the first time, but with the level of brand rep/following Radiance has now, he may be able to be successful with.

pretty blown away Mariko Okada got interviewed for this disc. I'd have given anything for her to be interviewed for an edition of Late Autumn (or even An Autumn Afternoon), but hopefully this will be a fairly expansive interview...given that she's 90 and still with us!

[yoshimori]

Seconding all those above. Amazing film. Spent a lot of time with it years ago helping with some subtitles.

[dwk]

Curious to know if this is with someone in the US or if the Japanese licensor just didn't want a region A release available.

[dadaistnun]

Beaver

[domino harvey]

I seemingly had the opposite experience of most people to the Arrow Yoshida set, in that I hated Eros + Massacre but liked the other two “lesser” films in the box. So I was willing to give him another go, because I’m legit not sure where I stand on him. But I have a little more clarity now. I thought this was an absolutely repellant film and a real chore to sit through. On a plot level this is execrable. Why do films like this always go too far in making sure an audience is miserable? Like it’s not enough this kid has his dad die and has to deal with his issues with women via how he sees his mother, but we’ve got to have a family friend violate him too? You’ve done enough, we get it! I also “got” the unusual framing the first dozen times but Yoshida just kept doing it, blocking off the ‘Scope screen with objects that make it look like masking. I’m sure someone can ascribe a meaning of their choosing to the ostentatious method there, but it quickly became tiring (not that I was all that invested in what transpired here anyways). So now I’m at 2-2 on Yoshida. I guess I’ll give him one more shot to see if he’s worth pursuing further, if anyone wants to advocate for a particular title based on the ones I did mildly enjoy (and maybe more importantly, the ones I didn’t!)

[Mr Sausage]

I’d love to know why you hated Eros + Massacre, because I found it deathly dull but feel a bit guilty for thinking so, for whatever reason.

[domino harvey]

The weird dead space compositions and general angular construction over such a punishing running time grew tiresome almost immediately for me, and there was nothing else of interest going on in the film for me to grab onto

[Mr Sausage]

Sounds like we had very similar experiences.

I also found the other two films in the set more tolerable, but that may've just been because they were shorter.

[TechnicolorAcid]

So now I’m at 2-2 on Yoshida. I guess I’ll give him one more shot to see if he’s worth pursuing further, if anyone wants to advocate for a particular title based on the ones I did mildly enjoy (and maybe more importantly, the ones I didn’t!)

I haven’t seen it but in the wake of the new Wuthering Heights film, I saw an article ranking all of the film adaptations where they selected Yoshida’s Wuthering Heights as the best adaptation of the book so that could be a good place to go with Yoshida next

[Lowry_Sam]

I also found Arrow's pink Yoshida box a struggle to get through and it took several attempts to start & watch to completion. I bought the limited edition because it was touted as being such a rare release & unlikely ever to be re-released anywhere else and I had been immersing myself in 60s Japanese cinema with Teshigahara & Imamura. I was anticipating that even if I didn't like it as much, I would be able to resell & recoup my costs. For some inexplicable reason it keeps getting re-released or otherwise has never seemed to be OOP since I bought it (getting both a standard issue & US issue), so I just decided to hang on & maybe revisit later. There's probably some cultural angle that I missed that would have made the film's import more apparent to me and the film just didn't compel me enough to delve into the extras & just haven't attempted any more Yoshida.