#27 - A Page of Madness (1926)
(dir. Teinosuke Kinugasa)
A custodian at an asylum keeps an eye on his wife, who is a patient there. Their daughter arrives and tells him that she is going to be married, and then the man starts imagining stuff about his wife and the patients and, uh... other stuff. I have no idea. I honestly couldn't really follow what was happening. Not only is it a silent film, but there are also no intertitles explaining the action. According to Wikipedia this would've originally been performed with a live narrator, but the version I watched has nothing like that, so I was very lost.
Still, this is visually impressive, and not just for the time. The opening sequence is surreal and feels relatively modern, with lots of quick editing and visual effects, and the ending is creepy and looks really great. The whole film has a dreamlike (and sometimes nightmarish) quality that I really loved.
If a silent experimental Japanese film sounds interesting to you I recommend it, but be warned that it's really hard to follow.
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