Part of Third Window Films/Rapid Eye Movies' Pink Films 1-5 set of raunchy pink flicks. This is kind of a sexploitation tragedy-goes-revenge-flick making use of some psychedelic imagery and occasional hints of ero guro subject matter. Sadly, the storyline is rather thin and the whole thing somehow amounts to less than the sum of its parts. Still enjoyable for the trippy visuals though.
Review by Miguel A. ReinaBlockedParent2021-03-27T11:11:26Z
[MUBI] The budget for pink films was limited to 3.5 million yen (about 25,000 €), so directors could not afford to use color, although certain scenes were highlighted using color in some titles. Therefore, "Blue Film Woman" (Kan Mukai, 1969) is a rarity in this context, since it is one of the few films shot entirely in color, and one of the few that have survived in its 35mm original copy. The director Kan Mukai is one of the main representatives of the Pink Cinema, to which he dedicated himself for almost his entire life, directing some 200 films and producing more than 500. And in this case, it is a story that can be framed directly in the subgenre, with all its consequences.
With less tendency to experiment than in other titles, "Blue Film Woman" has an almost dreamlike beginning, in which the color is highlighted in a sequence that seems to evoke the credit titles of the films of James Bond, but then the story unfolds in a linear fashion, focusing mainly on the erotic aspect. When a father of a family loses all his money in a bad investment, a lender demands the payment of the interest, but proposes to offer him another loan in exchange for having sex with his wife. The woman becomes an object of exchange between men, but it will also cause the family breakdown. Her daughter, a young student, promises that she will avenge her family by getting a large sum of money... by becoming a whore.
"Blue Film Woman" is presented as a more conventional story than others, but introduces an interesting approach to psychedelia in the visual conception, both in the beginning sequence and in those that take place inside the disco, or those that show the apparent sexual submission of the protagonist. In this sense, Kan Mukai offers a different treatment of the image, taking advantage of color, but also proposes a certain social criticism of capitalism. Prostitution functions here as a representation of the strengths and weaknesses of a capitalist society. "She's so stupid. She thinks it's wrong to have sex for money." So there is a background that largely fuels the interest of the film. There is a hint of female empowerment, but victory is not possible in a story that is intended for an eminently male audience, and therefore the rebelling sexual object (the woman) ends up being punished.