‘Carmen from Kawachi brings the nihilist Suzuki universe to a woman’s life in the decidedly unsentimental education of a provincial factory worker, Tsuyuko, whose rape by two fellow villagers starts her on the road to sexual awareness and finally, independence. It is a long, picaresque road indeed, meandering from Osaka’s Club Dada, through liaisons with a millionaire, a dominatrix, and an action painter–all the while cohabiting with a degenerate if loving roué. The determining encounter is with a corrupt monk, whose sordid affair with her mother had been for Tsuyuko a primal introduction to sexual hypocrisy and male brutality.’Read More »
