Production still from Black River 1957 / Director: Masaki Kobayashi / Image courtesy: Shochiku
A passionate filmmaker, Japanese director Masaki Kobayashi’s beautifully crafted films rail against injustice while questioning tradition and authority.
After conscription as a solider and subsequent time as a prisoner of war, Kobayashi embarked on his filmmaking career in the 1950s at the prestigious Shochiku film studio. In postwar and post-occupation Japan, cinema was at the forefront of cultural dissent and Kobayashi’s allegorical films examine contemporary social themes. This selection of his work is presented in partnership with the Japan Foundation.
Production still from Kwaidan (Ghost Stories) 1964 / Director: Masaki Kobayashi / Image courtesy: Shochiku
Masaki Kobayashi screens at GOMA from 6 to 27 August 2016 | Free
The Australian Cinémathèque is proud to present a retrospective of films by Masaki Kobayashi with the generous support of the Japan Foundation.
Included in this program is Kobayashi’s monumental anti-war trilogy The Human Condition 1959 – 1961 which examines the recurrent themes dearest to the filmmaker: injustice, systemic corruption, resistance to totalitarian authority and their influence on individual lives. While the film’s source material is the popular six volume novel by Junpei Gomikawa, The Human Condition also draws from Kobayashi’s own military experience and account of wartime.
Production still from The Human Condition III 1959 – 1961 / Director: Masaki Kobayashi / Image courtesy: Shochiku
Australian Cinémathèque
GOMA is the only Australian art gallery with purpose-built facilities dedicated to film and the moving image and offers a rare opportunity to see films presented on the big screen as they were intended, and features many 35mm prints sourced from film archives around the world and screened in one of Australia’s last 35mm film venues.
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