Émotion

Nobuhiko Ôbayashi's collagic-vampiric love story is a highly stylish homage to Roger Vadim's Blood and Roses.

Nobuhiko Ôbayashi's experimental short film depicting the life, perhaps real, perhaps a dream, of a young girl named Emi. Emi travels to the city where she encounters her counterpart, Sari, and falls in love with... a vampire? Inspired by Roger Vadim's Blood and Roses, yet seemingly just as influenced by the pop culture zaniness of The Monkees, Émotion clearly carries the imprint of Ôbayashi's burgeoning advertising career on his narrative film work. With its fantastic imagery and stylistic verve, this delightful and surprising film is a clear forerunner of his later cult classic House/Hausu (1977).

While the film is in Japanese language, esteemed film historian Donald Richie provides an English narration (which is transcribed in optional captions for the hard of hearing). Émotion is part of a package of short films specially curated by Matchbox Cineclub, who have also created the English subtitles for this exclusive digital presentation for the first time in the UK. This presentation is derived from the best quality materials available.