Watcher in the Attic – 88 Films

Director: Noboro Tanaka
Script: Akio Ido
Cast: Junko Miyahita, Renji Ishibashi, Tokuko Watanabe, Shiro Yumemusa, Aoi Nakajima, Hiroshi Cho, Koji Yashiro
Running time: 76.5 minutes
Year: 1976
Certificate: 18

Based on a story by well-respected Japanese writer Edogawa Rampo, Watcher in the Attic is set in Tokyo, in 1923, and sees Saburo Gouda (Renji Ishibashi) spending much of his time spying, from above, on his fellow apartment building tenants, often exploring their dirty secrets. He does all this from the loft space, using spy-holes bored into the ceilings of his neighbours’ abodes. After he witnesses a meeting between aristocratic (but bored) Lady Minako and her sex-slave, who’s dressed as a clown, he realizes that Minako and he are quite alike, both inhabiting a dark realm of the senses; both drawn to the corruption they both like to experience and cause.

Directed by one of the Nikkatsu‘s top Roman Porno filmmaking talents, namely Noboru Tanaka, Watcher in the Attic is a very intimate film, with very few people sharing scenes; well, at least not for long.

Actress Junko Miyashit, who plays Minako Sayanomiya, is captivating as the bored trophy wife who keeps a room in a boarding house just so that she can have some clown, literally, be her love slave. But pretty much all of the residents at this boarding house have their own kinks; including a man who hides inside an armchair for sexual kicks and a naked woman dressed as a stag in an artist’s studio.

One day Minako notices Saburo’s eye watching her from a hole in the ceiling and is subsequently turned on by this invasion of her privacy. This experience changes both the voyeur and the victim, eventually leading to murder – her clown lover is strangled between Minako’s milky white thighs!

Watcher in the Attic straddles multiple genres. On one hand, it’s a psychological thriller, on the other it’s also a period drama, but mostly it’s a piece of erotica. Frequently listed as a ‘pink film’, which fits, it’s very different from other Japanese erotica such as Flower and Snake. At the film’s heart is the character of Minako Sayanomiya, who is beautiful, elegant and cruel who falls for a voyeuristic loner, who’s also a killer.

This is certainly not a film for all viewers, but running at less than eighty minutes, Watcher in the Attic does not outstay its welcome. However, curious viewers – even those not ‘taken’ with the rather fetching Junko Miyashita – should at least give this one a try.

Like similar titles such as Rampo Noir, Watcher in the Attic can be quite tedious at times and is certainly more art-house than charnel house.  There are some profoundly weird moments of erotica scattered throughout, which catch one’s imagination (sex with a chair anyone?), and the cinephotography is good, but director Noboru Tanaka frequently tests the viewer’s patience with his repetitive, often soporific style of storytelling, with some scenes drawn out for way too long.

As per usual for 88 Films they’ve put together some decent special features:

Audio commentary with Japanese cinema experts Jasper Sharp and Amber T – Jasper and Amber do well to bring lots of interesting facts and anecdotes to the fore during their engaging commentary, including the fact that Watcher in the Attic is loosely based on a short story by the late, great Edgar Allen Poe. Apparently the director made 30 of these so called ‘pink’ movies during his career, while the main actress starred in 80 of them during a 7/8 year period!

Who’s Watching Who? Hisayasu Sato on Watcher in the Attic (9 mins) – An interesting interview with the director/writer of plenty of pink movies, during which he talks in some detail as to why Watcher is one of the better pink movies; more specifically a Roman Porno film, which were more expensive, studio-led pink films. He makes some interesting observations about modern art, saying that “our freedom of expression has largely been stolen from us and the importance of the individual has now been lost, now that our essential darkness has been weaponized.”

Stills gallery – Plenty of colour stills, including two that were not in the film;

Trailer (2.42 mins) – This reminds us that there’s some lovely photography in the film and ends with yet another shot that I didn’t remember being used in the film itself.