The Insect Woman – Contextualising Imamura and the Intricacies of Global Cinema Study

Abstract

This essay represents an attempt to further the understanding of the films by Japanese New Wave director Shohei Imamura through the use of post-colonial theory, and political and cultural contextualisation; it also offers discussion on the inherent issues of discussing non-Western cinema from a Western point-of-view, and how post-colonial theory can be used tentatively by Western writers to prevent the perpetuation of orientalism and the generalisation of non-Western cultures as a single entity simply titled ‘the Other’. This is done through an in-depth exploration of Western film theory’s problematic relationship to Asian cinema, along with disposition and historical contextualisation relevant to Imamura’s films and the Japanese New Wave movement of the 1960s. This is then followed by an analysis on Imamura’s sixth film, The Insect Woman, released in 1963, in which I implement post-colonial theory while also comparing it to Yasujiro Ozu’s 1951 motion picture Early Summer, a film which addresses similar themes but in widely different ways.