This screening will take place in the Francesca Beale Theater of our Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center

Emily Brontë’s Gothic romance is transposed to feudal Japan for Yoshida’s powerfully stark, elemental take on the story. The lush English moors are replaced by a harsh mountain setting, almost lunar in its desolation. There, the wild-eyed orphan Onimaru (Yūsaku Matsuda, an imposingly physical “Heathcliff”) exacts cruel revenge on the Yamabe clan after family tradition forces him to separate from his lover, Kinu (Yūko Tanaka, an ethereal “Cathy”). Yoshida conjures a savage world of expressionistic landscapes, spurting blood, and demonic spirits for a retelling that approaches primeval horror.