Outreach
Video Lending Library
Japan
- Program Title: Portrait of Hell
- EASC Code: JP-14
- Series Title:
- Region/Country: Japan
- Language: Japanese, English
- Subtitles: English
- Subject: History, Fiction
- Program Type: Feature
- Media Type:
- Director:
- Producer: Tanaka Tomoyuki
- Release Date: 1969
- Running Time: 95 min.
- Color or BW: Color
- Program Abstract: Based on a story by world-renowned author Akutagawa Ryonosuke, Portrait of Hell is a vivid depiction of a world where only the powerful were free, and the powerless lived in an earthly Hell. Almost 1000 years ago, during the Heian era in Japan, Yoshihide, a vistionary Korean painter (Nakadai), clashes with his despotic patron, the Paramount Lord (Nakamura), insisting on painting only the truth, and only what he has himself witnessed--the poverty and suffering that surrounds him. When Yoshihide finally convinces the Paramount Lord to let him paint a Portrait of Hell, the descent into madness begins for both men…for Yoshihide must see Hell in order to paint it, and his sadistic patron is all too willing to arrange a viewing! Portrait of Hell paints a collage of a world where Love cannot exist without Hate, where Happiness cannot exist with Sorrow and above all where Horror and Madness lurk in the recesses of every man's mind.
- Data Entry Date: 7/30/2007
