With Beauty and Sorrow

The writer Oki, in his youth, had a relationship with the sixteen year old Otoko, she lost the child she was carrying, and he turned what had happened into a novel that made his name. Years later he goes to visit Otoko in Kyoto, now a well known painter, and beside her is Keiko, her young student and lover. Keiko decides to make the man answer for what was done to her teacher and turns towards his family, and above all towards his son. The account thus shows how an old wound shapes a person and whom revenge actually touches. Masahiro Shinoda’s hundred and six minute Japanese film was adapted from Yasunari Kawabata’s 1964 novel Beauty and Sadness. Kaoru Yachigusa plays Otoko, Mariko Kaga plays Keiko and So Yamamura plays Oki. It opened on 28 February 1965, and Kawabata considered it the best adaptation made from any of his works.