text: With rapid intercutting of scenes of insane people in an asylum, and montage/superimposition of images, and vague, interwoven narratives, this is a very hard movie to follow. Apparently a man (Masue Inoue) takes a job as a porter or janitor in an asylum so he can be near his imprisoned wife, and maybe to rescue her. But she's clearly mad, huddled on the floor, with a vacant expression much of the time and fear, misery, and confusion written on her face the rest of the time. The film-maker switches to her point of view sometimes, and we see vague images of her at the side of a pond drowning a baby, or clutching at a drowned child. She's tormented by something. When the point of view shifts to her or other mad folks, the filmmaker uses distorting lenses and such things, showing us what mad people see and then how they react. And the place is swarming with mad folks, laughing, hiding, and in one case dancing frenetically night and day. At one point the man tries to take his wife outside, but the night outside the door terrifies her and she runs back to her cell. Gradually the man slips into a nightmare in which he's interrupted in another attempt to steal her away, and he kills the doctor and many attendants, and all the while the mad folk laugh and applaud. When he wakes he is relieved, and mops the floor. Some fascinating shots of Japanes life, streets, buildings in the 1920s.