Edogawa Ranpo ryôki-kan: Yaneura no sanposha (1976)

The landlord of a boarding house in 1923 Tokyo, is keen on spying on the bizarre close encounters taking place beneath his roof. One day he sees a prostitute killing a customer, and decides he's found his soulmate.

Director:

Noboru Tanaka

Writers:

Rampo Edogawa (short story "Yaneura no sanposha"), Akio Ido (screenplay)

Stars:

Junko Miyashita, Renji Ishibashi, Hiroshi Chô

1 nomination.

Cast

Credited cast:
Junko Miyashita	...	Minako Sayanomiya
Renji Ishibashi	...	Saburo Gouda
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Hiroshi Chô	...	Koichiro Sayanomiya
Kyoichi Mizuki	...	Pharmacist
Aoi Nakajima	...	Prostitute
Toshihiko Oda	...	Hiruta
Kazuko Tajima	...	Ginko
Tokuko Watanabe	...	Miyuki Tomita
Yasuji Yashiro	...	Endo
Shiro Yumemura	...	Pierrot

Storyline

Based on a story by well-praised Japanese writer Edogawa Rampo. In Tokyo, 1923, Saburo Gouda is exploring secrets of his fellow-occupants of an apartment building. All from above, using spy-holes bored in ceilings of his neighbors rooms. After he sees a meeting between aristocratic (and bored) Lady Minako and a clown, he realizes, that pursuit of Minako's blooming dark realm of senses is drawing themselves by the corruption they both experience and cause.

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Plot Keywords:

landlord | prostitute | spying | based on short story | artist | 

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Genres:

Crime | Horror | Mystery

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Details

Official Sites:

Official site [jp]

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

12 June 1976 (Japan)

Also Known As:

The Stroller in the Attic

Company Credits

Production Co:

Nikkatsu

Technical Specs

Runtime:

76 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Connections

Version of Yaneura no sanposha (2007)

User Reviews

I never realised voyeurism could be so boring.

Saburo (Renji Ishibashi) spends his spare time creeping into the attic of the communal building where he lives and crawling across the beams to access his neighbours' roof space, where he spies upon them through handy peepholes in the ceiling.

Among those he watches is Minako, the bored wife of a successful businessman, who has taken a room in the complex for her adulterous trysts. When Minako notices Saburo peering down on her during sex, she finds the experience so exciting that she kills her partner, a Pierrot clown, in the throes of passion—an act that spurs Saburo on to commit his own murder.

Like Rampo Noir, the only other film based on a Rampo Edogawa novel that I have seen so far, Watcher in the Attic is a thoroughly tedious and pretentious art-house affair that, despite its salacious subject matter manages to bore more than it excites. With plenty of female nudity (primarily from star Junko Miyashita) and some profoundly weird moments of erotica (including a man who hides inside an armchair for kicks and a naked woman dressed as a stag), plus a relatively short runtime of 76 minutes, this should have breezed by; instead, the film is tortuously slow, director Noboru Tanaka testing the viewer's patience to the extreme with his repetitive, soporific style of storytelling.