The Insect Woman

The Insect Woman (にっぽん昆虫記, 1963) is a Japanese social drama from director Shōhei Imamura that you can watch online on iFILM. Sachiko Hidari took home the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 1964 Berlin International Film Festival for her work here — a performance built across decades and a dozen devastating turns.

The film follows Tome from her birth in 1918 in a rural Japanese village through a life shaped almost entirely by other people's decisions. Imamura tracks her without sentiment: she endures poverty, exploitation, and war, and eventually becomes something harder to sympathise with than a victim. The insect in the title is a metaphor for repetition — creatures going through the same motions in an endless loop, not by choice.

Imamura was dissecting postwar Japanese society, not telling an individual tragedy. At two hours, the film asks for patience, but it's the kind you keep thinking about afterwards. Watch The Insect Woman online on iFILM.