All Mixed Up (Manji)
Masumura Yasuzo, director.
Japan, 1964, 35mm, 91 min.

An incredibly beautiful and rare film that made a resurgence and caused audiences around the world to squeal in delight at this florid, taboo-breaking love affair. A cult classic among lesbians in Japan, Manji is based on a wildly successful story from the late 20s and was one of the first japanese films to deal with lesbianism.

What makes this film such a delightis its unintentional camp element as passions explode. The convoluted relationship soon escalates into a soap opera melodrama. Sonoko is the dutiful but unhappy wife of a rich lawyer, attending art school solely to kill time. There she meets a young, mysterious woman, Mitsuko.

Fascinated by her beauty, Sonoko seduces Mitsuko into a lesbian relationship, of which Sonoko is at first ashamed, but in which she soon endulges with abandon. Superbly overwrought, full of blackmail, blood oaths suicide pacts and kitch emotions, Manji also offers surprisingly explicit erotica.

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