A Page of Madness

The sensory experience that the Shinkankahuha endorsed is thoroughly employed in the film “Page of Madness” by Kinugasa through the film language technique, the edit. The film experiments with editing to force the audience to have a deeper impression and reaction to the image and story that is presented. This film closely follows the Shinkankahuha in this sense as well as it rebels against the traditional narrative structure to create an impression on the audience. In one example the editing highlights the relationship between characters with a tactful position of different shots alongside each other. In an interesting sequence, the camera is in the hallway of the hospital and spins to land on the faces of different patients. As the camera lands one character it moves to the next in a rhythmic spinning motion. The camera lands on the face of a patient who appears to be in pain than another who is laughing. The juxtaposition of the emotions as well as the decreasing duration highlight this increasing tension. The edit emphasizes duration as each time the camera stops spinning the audience is given less time to view the character to a breaking point where eventually the camera spins out of control. I think this scene acts as visual symbolism that helps provide context to what we are watching unfold. The audience is put into the shoes of the janitor in this scene and can feel the dizziness and disillusionment. It symbolizes the nature of the hospital uniquely by forcing the audience to experience those feelings instead of simply watching them unfold. In this sense, subjectivity is highlighted. The audience is forced to question the point of view and explore how they look at the film in relation to their personal experience. The space and time that the audience feels during the film are not one-dimensional and subjective to that particular person. The film feels like an uncomfortable experience that truly is madness almost like the audience is in the mental institute with the janitor where they are spinning out of control and each moment is a completely different emotion.