VIllon's Wife

Rating: 6.8/10

Film Class: C

Genre: Drama

A slow-moving tale of a wife's benevolence despite her obnoxious yet talented husband. Takoko Matsu stars as the perservering, magnanimous wife who atones for her husband's thef by working at the bar which he stole money from, run by an elderly couple. Her husband, Otani, though extremely talented in poetry writing, treats his wife like little respect and is paranoid about a make believe scandal.

This is a movie that's melodramatic, slow-pacing, and even at times, unrealistic and extremely twisted. It kinda reminded me of the famous artist, Vincent Van Gogh.. talented yet eccentric... Unlike Van Gogh, Otani isn't suffering from mental illness, but more of depression... which once again reminded me of the "sekai-kai" concept from Evangelion. The japanese term "sekai-kai" sinply means that the protagonist in the anime or manga mirrors their creator life. So it was such a "dark and twisted" film that it almost felt the director himself was suffering from depression... to have been able to come up with such a warped perspective.

The movie which centers around the female protagonist, unfortunately lacked good acting. The female lead wasn't convincing in her role and she was unable to bring out her character's emotional torment. Too much forced smiles, and unsettling facial emotions which wasn't quite in synch with the scene's mood. Well, all is not loss as the most important factor in pulling me to catch the movie wasn't so much the story or the cast, but the setting. One can never get enough of such a "classic"-styled setting. It really brings you to another era of Japanese culture... and deserves high praise based solely on that (another such movie which is able to accomplish that is Ip Man 2 - old chinese era). It brought me to another world, a world of stillness, silence and despair.

But that's about it. The setting and its ability to zap me into their world, not the professional acting, nor the engaging scripting or storyplot. Didn't quite understand the purpose of adding the first scene... probably the director wanted to attempt to explain the husband's messed up childhood and the basis behind the movie title... Villon... wasn't even explained. Well, it could just be me... might work for you, but I'm sure chances are, it won't work for most. A boring movie is hard is pull off as an arty farty one unless one's delusional enough to insist on a second opinion.