With Beauty and Sorrow

With Beauty and Sorrow
File:With Beauty and Sorrow.jpg Original Japanese poster
Directed by	Masahiro Shinoda
Produced by	Takeshi Sasaki
Written by	Yasunari Kawabata (novel) Nobuo Yamada (screenplay)
Starring	Kaoru Yachigusa Mariko Kaga So Yamamura
Music by	Toru Takemitsu
Cinematography	Masao Kosugi
Edited by	Yoshi Sugihara
Distributed by	Shochiku
Release dates	28 February 1965 (1965-02-28) (Japan)
Running time	106 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

With Beauty and Sorrow (美しさと哀しみと, Utsukushisa to Kanashimi to) is a 1965 Japanese drama film directed by Masahiro Shinoda and based on the novel Beauty and Sadness (1964) by the Nobel-winning Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata.

Plot

Many years ago Toshio Ôki (So Yamamura), who was approaching middle age, had a relation to 16-year-old Otoko (Kaoru Yachigusa). She got pregnant, but the child was stillborn. Their relation stopped at the same time. Much later Ôki had become a famous writer, not least because of a novel about this love story. Otoko had become a famous painter. But she had never overcome the double early trauma and had become a Lesbian. Her favourite student and beloved one was the beautiful Keiko (Mariko Kaga). Twenty four years after the early love Ôki goes from Tokyo to Kyoto to meet Otoko. The meeting is polite with secret emotional shadows. Keiko makes a plan. She intends to seduce Ôki, become pregnant, bear Ôki's child and give it to Otoko. She hopes that Otoko may thereby get rid of her trauma. But she also wants to take her revenge on the man who had harmed her beloved. Secretly she gets acquainted with Ôki's son, invites him to Kyoto and seduces him. Then she calls his parents and tells that he had promised to marry her. Horrified they take the first plane to Kyoto. Meanwhile, she takes the son on boating, arranges an accident, and drowns him. It is close that she herself would also die.

Cast

• Kaoru Yachigusa as Otoko Ueno
• Mariko Kaga as Keiko Sakami
• So Yamamura as Toshio Ôki
• Haruko Sugimura as Otoko's Mother
• Kei Yamamoto as Taichiro Ôki
• Misako Watanabe as Fumiko Ôki

Awards

• 1965: Asia-Pacific Film Festival Awards - Best Supporting Actress for Kaoru Yachigusa

External links

• With Beauty and Sorrow at IMDb