Fiancée of a Spy

I'm sure this will be a touchstone for Kurosawa's Pre-WWII espionage flick. Even putting the similar historical subject matter and its affinity with Kiyoshi-favorite Red Angel aside, this one would very comfortably fit in with his miraculous recent run of investigations into identity and spiritual life vis-à-vis marriage and the couple. Since it's Masumura, the conclusion is much more chilling and pessimistic – but even the most misanthropic, necrophiliac image here also contains a very human…

Third time around with this, what on first viewing had seemed to be the Jerry movie. And that it still may be, though it’s hard to watch around others. It’s so mental, so direct a rendition of the architecture of Lewis’ mind, even in the long stretches when the Jerry character is not present, that every repetition, elongation, fumbled joke is charged, but only once you’ve surrendered to the film’s moody, anxious wavelength. In The Ladies Man, the house/head is…