Wet Woman in the Wind
風に濡れた女
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A woman of pure appetite pursues a playwright hiding in the woods — a comedy of sex as weather.
Kosuke Kashiwagi, a Tokyo playwright who has sworn off women, lives alone in a shack he built in the woods, sleeping in an inflatable dinghy and going into town for coffee beans. One afternoon at the harbour a young woman rides her bicycle straight into the water in front of him, climbs out, wrings out her shirt and asks to stay the night. She is Shiori. He tips her into a ditch. She tells him she has locked onto him and he cannot escape.
She takes a job as a waitress at his usual café and turns up everywhere. He comes home to find her in his shack with a surfer, and she tells him that if he gives in, he loses. At closing time she propositions the café's owner, Kubouchi, who flies into a rage and sexually assaults her; she is wearing clothes that belonged to the wife who walked out on him, a loss he blames on Kosuke. When Shiori says she once wanted to act, Kosuke puts her through exercises, and a drill in which they grip the two ends of a branch turns into a heated tussle.
Then his past arrives in a van: Kyoko, a stage director and his former lover, with four young actors and a shy assistant, Yuko, who adores his plays. Kyoko offers Shiori a part, and an improvisation between the two women turns into a seduction. That night Kyoko climbs into Kosuke's bed; Shiori slips in between them and kicks him out. Outside, Kosuke presses Yuko into sex, and afterwards she tells him that a teacher sexually assaulted her at school; he does not see the likeness. By morning Kyoko and the actors have gone. Kosuke sends Yuko away too, and on the mountain road she gets into the car of his friend Yuzawa.
At last Kosuke and Shiori come together, so violently that the shack collapses around them. When he wakes, she is gone. Carved into a stool in the wreckage is a question: which one is the dog?
Starring
Yuki Mamiyaas Shiori
A mysterious young woman who calls herself a love hunter and sets out to break Kosuke's vow to live without women.
Shiori’s story
Shiori rides her bicycle into the harbour in front of Kosuke and asks him to put her up for the night. Tipped into a ditch, she tells him she has locked onto him and he cannot escape. She takes a job at his café, turns up everywhere and taunts him that if he gives in, he loses. When she propositions the café's owner, Kubouchi, he sexually assaults her. She says she once wanted to act, and his exercises turn into a tussle. When his former lover, Kyoko, arrives with a troupe, Shiori turns an improvisation into a seduction, then slips into bed between them and kicks Kosuke out. At last they come together, so violently that the shack collapses. By morning she is gone, leaving a question carved into a stool: which one is the dog?
Tasuku Nagaokaas Kosuke Kashiwagi
A Tokyo playwright, worn out by his love affairs, who has sworn off women and retreated to a shack in the woods.
Kosuke Kashiwagi’s story
Kosuke's retreat runs to a routine: coffee beans from town, a garden, an inflatable dinghy for a bed. When Shiori rides into the harbour and asks to stay, he tips her into a ditch and goes on resisting her. He takes her through acting exercises, and a drill with a branch turns into a tussle. His former lover, Kyoko, arrives with her troupe and climbs into his bed, and Shiori kicks him out of it. Outside he presses Kyoko's assistant, Yuko, into sex; when she tells him a teacher sexually assaulted her at school, he does not see the likeness, and in the morning he sends her away. At last he and Shiori come together, so violently that the shack collapses. He wakes alone and finds a question carved into a stool: which one is the dog?
Ryushin Teias Kubouchi
The owner of the café where Shiori takes work, who blames Kosuke for the wife who walked out on him.
Michiko Suzukias Kyoko
A stage director and Kosuke's former lover, who turns up with her touring troupe and wants Shiori for a play.
Hitomi Nakatanias Yuko
Kyoko's shy young assistant, who worships Kosuke's plays and is left behind when the troupe moves on.
Why it matters
Wet Woman in the Wind was made for Nikkatsu's 2016 revival of Roman Porno, the studio's erotic films of the 1970s and 1980s, under their old rules: under eighty minutes, about a week to shoot, and a sex scene roughly every ten minutes. Akihiko Shiota used those rules for a screwball comedy in which the woman does the chasing. Shiori wants sex and says so, and the film treats her appetite as a force of nature rather than a sin to be punished; the man who fled desire in order to think is the one left looking foolish. It was selected for the competition at Locarno. Critics also saw what the comedy blurs: scenes in which force and sex run together, and a handling of rape one reviewer called whiplash-inducing. The film lives between those two readings, a heroine who takes what she wants and a genre long preoccupied with taking it from women.