A Page of Madness (1926)

A man takes a job at an asylum with hopes of freeing his imprisoned wife.

Director:

Teinosuke Kinugasa

Writers:

Yasunari Kawabata (short story), Yasunari Kawabata (adaptation)

Stars:

Masuo Inoue, Ayako Iijima, Yoshie Nakagawa

Cast

Cast overview:
Masuo Inoue	...	Servant
Ayako Iijima	...	Servant's Daughter
Yoshie Nakagawa	...	Servant's Wife
Hiroshi Nemoto	...	Young Man
Misao Seki	...	Doctor
Minoru Takase	...	Crazy Man A
Eiko Minami	...	Dancer
Kyosuke Takamatsu	...	Crazy Man B
Tetsu Tsuboi	...	Crazy Man C
Shintarô Takiguchi	...	Boy

Storyline

A husband picks up a job as a janitor at an insane asylum scheming all the time to be close to and free his wife from the institution where she recently attempted suicide. A score was added when in 1970 the reels were unearthed after they were considered lost for decades. The director approved and subsequently repudiated this version.

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Plot Keywords:

mental illness | madness | insane asylum | father daughter relationship | husband wife relationship | 

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Genres:

Drama | Horror

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Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

January 1975 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Forgotten Pages

Company Credits

Production Co:

Kinugasa Productions, National Film Art, Shin Kankaku-ha Eiga Renmei Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

59 min (1975 sound) 78 min (2007 restoration)

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

According to Mosk in his Variety review, "Its silver-painted sets, apparently to give more light, also gives a strange glow reminiscent to 'The Caboetof Dr. Caligari'."

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Alternate Versions

Reissued in Japan in 1973 with musical score replacing original benshi.

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Connections

Referenced in Century of Cinema: 100 Years of Japanese Cinema (1995)

User Reviews

A FORGOTTEN MASTERPIECE

An old man works as a janitor in a mental hospital to be close to his wife who is a patient there and to try to get her out.

This is surely one of the most forgotten masterpieces of the silent era and an oddity in the history of Japanese cinema. Long thought lost, a print was found in the 70s and a music soundtrack added to it, which fits perfectly with the images. It might have been influenced by cabinet of doctor Caligary (director Kinugasa claimed he never saw the German film). However it surpasses it in style and in its more convincing (and chilly) portray of the inner mental state of the inmates in the asylum. To achieve this, the film makes use of every single film technique available at the time: multiple exposures and out of focus subjective point of view, tilted camera angles, fast and slow motion, expressionist lighting and superimpositions among others. It is also a very complicated film to follow, as it has not got intertitles.

The film opens with a montage of shots of rain hitting the windows of the hospital, wind shaking trees and of thunder. The unsettling weather metaphors the mental condition of the patients and introduces one of the them: a former dancer. The combination of sounds produced by rain, wind and thunder serves as the music that incites the dancer to get into a frantic, almost hypnotic dance. In another sequence involving the same patient engaged in another frenzied dance, she is being watched by other inmates. Multiple exposures of the dancer represent the patients' point of view and their confused "view" of the world.

These are just two examples from this amazing film trying to represent the patients' subconscious and view of the "sane" world.

In three words A MUST SEE.