Carmen from Kawachi

Carmen from Kawachi brings the nihilist Suzuki universe to a woman’s life in the decidedly unsentimental education of a provincial factory worker, Tsuyuko, whose rape by two fellow villagers starts her on the road to sexual awareness and, finally, independence. It is a long, picaresque road indeed, meandering from Osaka’s Club Dada through liaisons with a millionaire, a dominatrix, and an action painter—all the while cohabiting with a degenerate if loving roué. The determining encounter, which brings the story full circle, is with a corrupt monk, whose sordid affair with her mother had been for Tsuyuko a primal introduction to sexual hypocrisy and male brutality. Adapting a novel by the author of Akutaro, Suzuki blends satire with melodrama to surrealistic effect. Yumiko Nogawa, the director’s favorite actress, was also featured in Story of a Prostitute and Gate of Flesh. “In his trilogy of women-centered films, Suzuki celebrates his heroines’ fierce sensuality and resilience as a kind of spiritual force in an otherwise amoral . . . universe (James Quandt).