Programmed May 2022

Death and Taxes: 11 Satires by Juzo Itami

Featuring an episode of the Criterion Originals series Creative Marriages on Itami’s collaboration with Nobuko Miyamoto Maverick director Juzo Itami didn’t direct his first feature—the alternately bawdy and bittersweet satire The Funeral —until the age of fifty, but it announced the arrival of a fully formed sensibility unafraid of skewering the most sensitive aspects of Japanese society. Though his follow-up, the rapturous “ramen western” Tampopo , would become his biggest international hit, it is only one jewel in a remarkably rich filmography that abounds in funny, sensual, and surreal pleasures. Frequently built around strong women—almost always embodied by his regular leading lady and real-life wife, the indomitable Nobuko Miyamoto—Itami’s films take bold, iconoclastic aim at everything from corporate corruption ( A Taxing Woman )…

Still watchable end to end