EPISODE 9: Shohei Imamura.

"I’m interested in people: strong, greedy, humorous, deceitful
people who are very human in the qualities and their failings."

The Pink Smoke’s John Cribbs and Christopher Funderburg recently appeared on the Flixwise: Canada podcast with host Martin Kessler to discuss their favorite member of the Japanese New Wave, the wry and brutal humanist Shohei Imamura - a two-time Palme D'Or winning artist who never received his proper due in the U.S. (of A.)

In unruly, energetic films like The Pornographers, Vengeance is Mine, Profound Desire of the Gods and The Eel, Imamura extends a profound capacity for empathy towards all the worst humanity has to offer. His aversion to "too perfect a cinema" and ability to mine humor and pathos from serial murder, prostitution, exploitative scams and the cruelty of tradition made him something of Japanese Luis Buñuel, a clear-eyed & generous dissector of humanity's wondrous irrationality. A deeply undervalued filmmaker and one of The Pink Smoke's very favorites!

~ SEPTEMBER 19, 2017 ~