Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Enjo (1958)

Director: Kon Ichikawa

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Yukio Mishima's acclaimed 1956 novel Kinkakuji (The Temple of the Golden Pavilion) was inspired by an actual incident in 1950 when a disturbed monk burned down one of Kyoto's most beautiful temple buildings. The temple requested that the name be changed to Shukakuji for this adaptation, which opens out the book's internal monologue, structuring the anguished protagonist's progress towards final conflagration through flashbacks as the police piece together their investigation. Raizo Ichikawa's central performance attracts sympathy for this stuttering temple acolyte from a broken family, who sees in the Golden Pavilion a purity of beauty in direct contrast to his own imperfect existence. It's a purity in danger of being defiled, however, as post-war occupation and reconstruction open the site to tourism, so he resolves to destroy pavilion in order to preserve it. Ichikawa's fragmented direction draws together this awful logic, leaving the audience dangling exquisitely between understanding and outright horror as flames obliterate a priceless cultural monument. The director's favourite among his own films.

Author: TJ 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Kon Ichikawa

Producer: Masaichi Nagata

Cast: Raizo Ichikawa, Tatsuya Nakadai, Ganjiro Nakamura, Yoichi Funaki, Tamao Nakamura, Jun Hamamura full cast

Duration: 99 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.