Blood is Dry

Film

Tuesday, April 23, 7 PM

Kiju Yoshida‘s second film for Shochiku is a fierce critique of mass media, advertising and capitalist consumerism. When his employers announce massive layoffs, a salaryman takes a gun to his head in a plea for mercy on behalf of his colleagues only to unwittingly become the center of an insurance company’s advertising campaign that exploits his desperate gesture for profit and markets him as a hero. Paired with Nagisa Oshima’s Night and Fog in Japan (1960) as a double bill, both films were pulled from theaters days after opening due to the politically motivated censorship of Oshima’s allegedly inflammatory film.

1960, 87 min., 35mm, b&w, in Japanese with English subtitles. Directed by Kiju Yoshida. With Keiji Sada, Kaneko Iwasaki, Shinichiro Mikami, Mari Yoshimura.

Part of The Other Japanese New Wave: Radical Films from 1958-61

Tickets: $14/$11 seniors & students/$10 members

Special Offer: Show your ticket for this event to our Welcome Desk and receive 50% off admission to our exhibition, Radicalism in the Wilderness: Japanese Artists in the Global 1960s. Valid through May 31, 2019.

This program is part of our Japan in the Global 1960s series.

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