Odd Obsession is a perverse family drama that would come close to black comedy, were it not for its mood of sex and death linked in an atmosphere of claustrophobic beauty. (This is one of Ichikawa's most successful collaborations with the cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa.) An elderly Kyoto art dealer attempts to keep his sexual potency alive by sundry means; when injections and aesthetics fail him, he tries jealousy, arranging liaisons between his still beautiful wife and a starving intern, his daughter's fiancé. In a twist ending, Junichiro Tanizaki's novel is subverted to suit Ichikawa's sense of irony. Donald Richie writes in The Japanese Cinema, "Erotic obsession is presented with such near-claustrophobic intensity that one longs for outdoor scenes, anything to get away from that dark and keyholed and magnificently photographed house. Yet this quality accounts for the power of this very powerful film: the spectator is made a participant. Although all the principals know at least as much as the viewer, nothing is ever discussed, nothing is brought into the open. Rather, everything is hidden, secreted away...(and) one double meaning follows another."