ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses Imamura Shohei's works on Vengeance is Mine, a feature film based on the story of a real-life Japanese serial killer. Following the financial and critical success of this film, Imamura attracted increasing acclaim domestically and internationally for his work over the next two decades. Vengeance is Mine is like Thousand Cranes in that the primarily locus of concern is with traumatic father-son relationality. In Vengeance is Mine, Imamura graphically demonstrates how the sins committed by sons are inseparable from those perpetrated by their fathers. He also makes it painfully clear that intervention and recovery are impossible unless dissociated traumatic memory is somehow adequately transformed into honest narrative memory. Traumatized individuals in general—and children in particular—naturally need the support and assistance of concerned, empathetic, and understanding others to accomplish this formidable task. Reflection on the contemporary sociopolitical context of the film helps shed light on what Imamura might have had in mind in this enigmatic closing scene.
