A Promise

A discussion on old age and euthanasia. Three generations live under one and the same roof in the new outskirts of Tokyo. The grandparents, Yoshio and Ritsuko, the parents Tatsu and Ryosaku, and grandchildren Takao and Nakao. Grandmother Ritsuku is sclerotic and a trial and tribulation to the family. There are arguments about who is going to look after her, all of which augments the family tension. She herself gets to the point she says she no longer wishes to live. One day, the grandmother is found dead. The policemen responsible for investigating the crime, a veteran officer and his young assistant, want to know whether she committed suicide or whether she has been murdered. They soon discover that everyone in the house had good reason to kill her. At first, the husband says he is guilty. But it is daughter Ryosaku who is indicted as guilty of the crime, although she cries out her innocence.

Born in 1933, in Fukui, Japan. He studied French Literature and, in 1955, joined Shochiku producers as Assistant Director to Keisuke Kinoshita. He directed his first film in 1960 with Good-for-Nothing. He was first noticed by the critics in 1962, with An Affair at Akitsu, A Story Written with Water (1965), The Affair (1967), Eros + Massacre (1969) and Heroic Purgatory (1970), dealing with political and sexual themes. Yoshida always refused interference with his work and, after he filmed Coup D’Etat (1973), he made documentaries for TV and for the cinema. He went back to fiction in 1986, with A Promise, followed by Wuthering Heights (1988), an adaptation of the novel by the same name by Emily Brontë. Women at the Mirror (2002), his last film, is programmed for the 27th Mostra.

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA