Not far from being a masterpiece 
To escape from a miserable life, a young woman becomes an old man's concubine. As he dies, she's becoming laughed at by the ones who know her and marries a wonderful man. There's a war, the young husband goes to the front and comes back hurt...
Seisaku's Wife is not far from being a masterpiece. One year after wonderful Manji, japanese New Wave director Masumura Yasuzo (who was hailed as the pioneer of japanese New Wave by Oshima Nagisa by the time Oshima worked as a filmcritic), actress Wakao Ayako (who played in many movies by Masumura) and screenwriter Shindo Kaneto (a major New Wave director too) have surpassed themselves again. The movie is at the same time classical and New Wave. Classical by its impressively rigourous style, its score so moving we forgive Masumura for using it too many times, its female character ready for everything in order to live her passion and walking through the zones where desire for love and desire for death are not that faraway (the kinda character often seen in classical japanese litterature). New Wave by its will not to avoid erotism and the most graphically violent consequences of passion, by the clash it creates: clash between a woman in love symbolizing marginality, survival during hard times and a man symbolizing Japan's traditional values, a clash amplified by the context of the war between Japan and Russia. The movie is using newspapers articles describing the evolution of the conflict to underline this context and is underlining the blind respect of tradition, the cruelty and the stupidity of those who criticize this passion, the dilemma between sacrifice for the country and individual will to live a love. Moreover, Wakao Ayako adds to the movie's qualities her brilliant performance. Violent, tragic, sad, politically explosive, this is a major achievement of the japanese New Wave.
