Unpleasant, and far too long. It was difficult for me to connect to the characters, and Imamura's style seemed more intent on playing up the sordid bits than exploring their emotions in an honest way. With cool detachment and amidst tedium he serves up incest, adultery, prostitution, children being born out of wedlock, and a daughter breastfeeding her father not once, but twice. It's a rags to riches to rags kind of tale for the main character (Sachiko Hidari) told over many decades, and it has a broader, cyclical sense about it which could have been compelling, but it's remarkably cold. Even the title seems to refer the lack of humanity in those in the bottom rungs of society, as they climb all over each other at the first opportunity, which is demeaning and rather offensive. Yes, there is an aspect of survival here, but the characters are essentially viewed as bugs. The freeze-frame transitions with quirky music did nothing for me either. A real chore to finish.
Review of The Insect Woman
