Kurutta Ippeji

A Page of Madness (1926)

Teinosuke Kinugasa

Janitor works at asylum so he can be near his mad wife, with their daughter's visit causing inadvertent consequences. Memories of the past, with the depressing present in the sanitarium, form this collective tragic potpourri that is further saddened by the visual representation of crazed, disturbed patients within the confines of the location. Eventually the janitor and those doctors at the asylum clash, with the patients also involved as both onlookers and participants. Highlights include opening dance that is both imagined as a grand presentation as if on an elaborate stage only to be explained as in a patient's mind & the patients losing control when the dancing girl inadvertently draws their attention, encouraging wild reaction that places the staff in a riotous situation they must temper.

*****

This will be difficult for some as no titles of dialogue help to serve as exposition for certain characters, with their actions and behavior as guide for what we see. The confluence of images often spilling over and into each other, as fantasy, memory, and reality must do to those mentally ill unable to balance it all can be quite jarring. Some powerful imagery and this overwhelming feeling of loss and accepting it (losing one's mental faculties is about as tragic as death itself) really drives home a grueling decision the janitor and daughter must make at the end. A silent film masterpiece I think. The asylum activities also offer us an inside glimpse into the prison of madness that holds them.