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Film: A Page of Madness (Kurutta ichipêji)
Year: 1926
Director: Teinosuke Kinugasa
Writers: Teinosuke Kinugasa, Yasunari Kawabata, Minoru Inuzuka and Bankô Sawada
Starring: Masao Inoue, Ayako Iijima and Yoshie Nakagawa
Review:
This was a film that I learned about thanks to the Letterboxd the top 250 highest rated horror films list. I do feel like I also discovered this when I started to compile lists of what films were released in what years for my Centennial Club episodes. This is one that I was intrigued to watch, since it had cross-over. Outside of knowing that this was from Japan and liking the poster, I did come into this one blind.
Synopsis: a man takes a job at an asylum with hopes of freeing his imprisoned wife.
There was another synopsis that I was looking to include, but I think that this one conveys what we’re getting better without giving away too many details. We start this film off with a great sequence where we see that it is raining. There are multiple cuts here that speed up that cut between showing different streams of running water. We also see flashes of other things. It is meshed with a dancer, played by Eiko Minami.
We then end up where a majority of this takes place. It is a mental hospital. There are these scenes that are edited in and we’re also using layering of film with a ghosting effect to show that the custodian at this asylum, played by Masao Inoue, used to be a captain on a ship. What we’ll learn through visuals and the aid of the synopsis, Yoshie Nakagawa, who is kept here is his wife. We see different times when he watches her through her cell door. There are also men kept here who seem to have freedom who also gather round, watching her and the dancer.
Something that I want to include is that this film does not have intertitles. I did a bit of reading up on this and apparently, when this was first shown in the theater over in Japan, they would have someone narrating it. What I gather is that the imprisoned wife tried to drown herself and her child. The daughter is now an adult, played by Ayako Iijima, and she is getting married. I infer that part of what is happening is the custodian wanting to get his wife out for that. The doctor who is in charge of her care, played by Misao Seki, doesn’t want her to leave.
That is where I’ll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I want to start is by saying that I’m not surprised this has a limited story. It isn’t important. What is impressive though are the visuals and the editing. With how early we are in the history of cinema, which blew me away. We get creative angles with the camera. The intercutting and ghosting effects used. They were limited by the technology, but what they did was enjoyable to watch.
I’ll stick with this idea a bit here to explore themes. Where I’ll start is that the surreal feeling is intentional. This is blurring the lines of the ‘real’ world by also showing us internal fantasies of inmates. The visual distortion that goes with it can also bring in the argument that ‘sanity’ is a matter of perspective. There is also the use of masks later in this. What I took this as was hiding your identity with the ‘performance’ that we put on when we are in public, hiding who we truly are.
Let’s then look at our lead character of the custodian. Him giving up his position as captain and working at the asylum. This can be read as a self-imposed sentence by taking what would be considered a menial job. This could also be atonement for his guilt of neglecting his wife and their child due to being away during his time at sea.
Then to shift a bit here, we also get entrapment. Whether that is the literal cages within the mental hospital. I noted the spinning wheels. This was something I looked up and it could be considered that the mother and father are stuck in a loop of memory and suffering. There’s another element here that plays into the society of Japan. Their daughter, who is set to get married, fears that her mother’s illness could ruin her chances of marriage. That trap could lead to societal shame.
I will then end this out by bringing up the chaotic feel of the film. The frantic pacing seems to be mirroring ‘nervous stimulation’ of the modern city. This was something else I looked up to as the writers of the Shinkankakuha movement were obsessed with this. There is also the loss of tradition. The father gives up his sense of duty for the sterile, scientific environment of the asylum. There are thoughts that this is mirroring Japan at the time.
Next would be looking at the acting performances. Inoue and Nakagawa, our leads, are excellent. Inoue's constant look of forlornness conveys his past struggles and current burden. Nakagawa looks insane with her disheveled look, cycling through trauma when she remembers her past sins. Iijima effectively portrays a young woman seeking a new life while grappling with the sins of her parents. Minami, Seki, and the rest of the cast provided the necessary support.
There is one last thing to include here. I saw information that this being a silent film, it didn’t necessarily have a soundtrack synced with it. Originally, it would be accompanied by a live orchestra or the like. This film was also thought to be lost. When it was discovered, music was commissioned. The director heard it and then made it officially what would be included. That isn’t something that is the norm for films of this era. What they used was settling and helped to enhance the atmosphere.
In conclusion, this is a landmark piece of silent cinema, not simply for its narrative ambiguity—a result of its lack of intertitles and reliance on benshi narration—but for its bold, experimental visual language. Teinosuke Kinugasa’s direction, coupled with pioneering editing and camerawork, created a dizzying, surreal depiction of madness and societal entrapment that remains startlingly modern a century later. While the film’s story serves primarily as a framework, its true power lies in its ability to challenge perceptions of reality and sanity through pure cinematic technique, making it a vital and unforgettable work in the history of global film.
My Rating: 8 out of 10