Description
Title: Season of Betrayal (1966)
Alternate Title: Uragiri no kisetsu
Genre: Drama
Plot Synopsis: A press photographer returns to Japan from the Vietnam War after losing his friend and fellow photographer on the battlefield. Haunted by his experiences, he becomes entangled in a series of deceptions and double-crosses, where war crimes are reenacted in Tokyo bedrooms as S/M scenarios. The film explores themes of trauma, exploitation, and the blurred lines between reality and delusion.
Cast and Crew:
- Director: Atsushi Yamatoya
- Producer: Kōji Wakamatsu
- Writers: Atsushi Yamatoya, Yōzō Tanaka
- Cast:
- Yuzo Tachikawa
- Shuri Taniguchi
- Hatsuo Yamaya
- Miharu Shima
- Mikio Terashima
IMDb Link: Season of Betrayal (1966)
Reviews from Letterboxd:
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Daniel – ★★★☆☆ “Season of Betrayal is the first film directed by Atsushi Yamatoya. While perhaps most famous for collaborating with Seijun Suzuki and co-writing Branded to Kill, Yamatoya was also a close collaborator with Koji Wakamatsu and Masao Adachi. Wakamatsu produced Season of Betrayal through his own company and was involved in the planning and filming of it.”
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honkeur – ★★★★☆ “Extremely unpleasant but impressive film. A Japanese war photographer returns from the Vietnam War traumatized, and in the course of a nearly-incoherent plot built of confusing deceptions and double-crosses, war crimes are reenacted in Tokyo bedrooms as S/M scenarios. Savant sleazemeister Koji Wakamatsu has a credit as Producer, and the typical signature Wakamatsu qualities are here: bleakness, shoestring budget, gratuitous s&x and brutal violence between extremely distressed individuals.”
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hotsake – ★½☆☆☆ “Wakamatsu’s films are really hit or miss for me and this was a big miss.”
Meta Description: “Season of Betrayal” (1966), directed by Atsushi Yamatoya, is a Japanese drama that follows a war photographer’s return from Vietnam. Haunted by his past, he becomes entangled in a web of deception and reenacted war crimes, exploring themes of trauma and exploitation.
Title: Grand Guignol (1987)
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Horror
Plot Synopsis: Baptiste, the director of a struggling theater troupe, specializes in Grand Guignol—macabre horror plays filled with gore and shock. His wife, Sarah, weary of his morbid obsessions and the troupe’s unstable environment, decides to leave him in search of a more conventional life. However, she soon discovers that the real world is just as bizarre and phantasmagorical as the plays her husband directs, leading her to reconsider her departure. The film explores themes of reality versus illusion, the allure of the grotesque, and the complexities of personal relationships within the theatrical world.
Cast and Crew:
- Director: Jean Marbœuf
- Writer: Jean Marbœuf
- Cast:
- Caroline Cellier as Sarah
- Guy Marchand as Baptiste
- Michel Galabru as Charlie
- Marie Dubois as Germaine
- Jean-Claude Brialy as M. Albert
IMDb Link: Grand Guignol (1987)
Reviews from Letterboxd:
- man_in_bath – ★★★☆☆ “Sarah, the wife of a theater director, decides to leave her mutt of a husband because she is tired of his morbid fantasies…”
Meta Description: “Grand Guignol” (1987), directed by Jean Marbœuf, is a French comedy-drama-horror film that follows Sarah, the wife of a theater director specializing in macabre plays, as she grapples with the bizarre realities of life both on and off the stage.
