The Crucified Lovers

Set in feudal Japan, ‘Chikamatsu Monogatari’ is an adaptation of a famous kabuki play by the sixteenth-century master Chikamatsu Monzaemon, about a couple compromised by circumstances who become lovers. Their illicit passion not only questions the rigid hierarchic codes that govern the society through which they move, but sweeps aside the relevance of that hierarchy. It's a film marked by breathtaking refinement on every level, with tantalising echoes of Oshima’s ‘Empire of the Senses’