Villon's Wife

This must be fate.

After I saw School Days with a Pig, I went to Cathay and caught Villon's Wife.

I thought I was seeing things when the teacher in School Days with a Pig appeared halfway through Villon's Wife. It seems Mr Satoshi Tsumabuki is everywhere.

The husband character in Villon's Wife was inspired by the French poet, François Villon, who was supposedly a poet, a thief and vagabond. Using that character, a story about a Japanese lady and her writer-husband was created, subsequently known as 'Villon's Wife'.

Ahhhh... The dark creative type... Struggling with his own monsters and himself... Seduced by the concept of suicide... Unsuitable for life partnership... for parenthood... yet so perfect to fall in love with.

In a drunken stupor, he said,

"I am like the monkey who peels the onion

until there is nothing."

It is an unbearably familiar mode of being.

He also realises how pliant and pure his wife is, but refuses to believe that she is merely so.

"There must be some mud beneath that."

The monsters he has to wrestle with are his own pain and his own pain only.

This is one of those films in which I felt the immense need to learn the language so as to enjoy every last shred of the story.

Somehow, the Picturehouse was 50% more filled than usual today. I had to share my row with at least 5 other people! On my right was a pair of local love birds. Watching the film was obviously not the boyfriend's idea as he was making all sorts of silly remarks, trying to show he knew what's going on. I bet the chick secretly hopes for a Villon, but has settled for him instead in the mean time.

On my left were 3 lone men. Very strange for a Picturehouse film... Age ranging from 30s to 50s. I think at least 2 of them were Japanese. The guy beside me (with his glasses above his eyebrows) was in my seat when I got there. I didn't think he understood English very well, but read the situation quickly. He also rushed out of the theatre halfway through the film to take a call, and returned some time later.

Maybe these lone men were there to admire Villon's Wife, i.e. one who doesn't exist in reality.