Directed by: Kō Nakahira
1964
/ 94 minutes
/ Unclassified 15+
Possession: A troubled man’s free fall into surreal meanderings of identity
Drawing from Paul Klee’s painting of the same name, Flora on the Sand premises with a strange imagining: Devoured by jealousy, a dying man swears to make his wife the weapon capable of destroying her future lover. Following the sexual exploits of an obsessive middle-aged man who is haunted by the womanising spirit of his late father, Nakahira dawns onto an era of leaking taboos – zealously foreshadowing Japan’s famed genre of ‘pink’ films. Swimming with artistic and daring themes, the film inhabits the dark recesses of a man’s psychological Pandora’s box as he dissolves into an ever-increasing Oedipus-like complex.
Sister to The Hunter’s Diary in lead (Noboru Nakaya), release year and psychosexual perversity, Flora on the Sand sees Nakahira well into Japan’s unforgettable era of experimental cinema.
Based on the novel by Junnosuke Yoshiyuki, this unique film is at once visually intoxicating and disconcerting – a slow waltz into a country’s unspoken obsession for suppressed sexual delirium.
National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra
Walk-ins only. Doors open 15 minutes prior to the screening.
QAGOMA, Brisbane
ACMI, Melbourne
The Chauvel Cinema, Sydney
Director: Kō Nakahira
Cast: Noboru Nakaya, Kazuko Inano and Mieko Nishio
Genre: Special Series
Category: Free
Language(s): Japanese with English subtitles
Format: 35mm b&w & colour