Double Suicide
Director: Masahiro Shinoda
Year Released: 1969
Rating: 2.0
Melodrama in old world Japan - a love triangle exists between a man, his toothless (or black-toothed, whichever) wife and a concubine, but when the concubine discovers she's about to be "purchased" by a sleazy suitor and when the man's wife discovers he's desperately in love with the geisha ... oh my, what a dilemma. Shinoda's creative set design and talent for composition make this a stark visual treat, though the overacting and surplus tear production will turn off anyone with an inherent predisposition against such things (read: me), leading to an embellished and predictable conclusion (hence the title). Fans of Romeo and Juliet-type fatalism might find something in the story to be in awe of, but when it comes to killing your love and then yourself, I always think to the words of Dorothy Parker: '...you might as well live.'
