Insect Woman

Comparing his heroine, Tome Matsuki (played by Sachiko Hidari, who won the "Best Actress" award at the 1964 Berlin Film Festival for the role) to the restlessness and survival instincts of worker insects, the film is an unsparing study of working-class female life. Beginning with Tome s birth in 1918, it follows her through five decades of social change, several improvised careers, and male-inflicted cruelty. Elliptically plotted, brimming over with black humour and taboo material, and immaculately staged in crystalline Nikkatsu Scope, The Insect Woman is arguably Imamura's most radical and emphatic testament to female resilience. (Eureka Entertainment)