The Lonely Affair of the Heart, directed by Junichi Suzuki, is filmed mostly in black and white to reflect the boredom and unhappiness of Orie (played by Rumi Sakakibara), a woman in her forties who married her sister’s husband after her sister died. Shiraki (played by Masakane Yonekura), her sixty-four-year-old husband, has given her a comfortable place to live but little emotional fulfillment. Both have quiet extramarital affairs, but Orie’s face has wrinkles, and she has much less money than her husband to hire the services of a prostitute. One day a handsome man (played by Kazuya Takahashi) suddenly appears on the premises of the house. At first, he claims to have been drunk and confused, but in due course filmviewers realize that he is Orie’s alter ego and that she is hallucinating. As Orie and her hallucinated alter ego have conversations, she receives some therapy in her quest for self-understanding, but another form of therapy is to masturbate while she dreams about him when he is not present. Orie also has an affair with a guitar-accompanied singer (played by Hirokazu Umeda), whom she later learns is married. Once, she briefly fantasizes a dream in full color about a meal of watermelons involving Shiraki, the musician, and her alter ego, but the dream is short. Later, Shiraki falls seriously ill. Orie attends to her husband, but her alter ego indicates that she will be alone when Shiraki dies. Indeed, upon Shiraki’s death, the young man disappears, presumably into her body. Filmviewers will quickly conclude that Orie is mentally disturbed, and few outside Japan may empathize with her. However, the genius of the film is to demonstrate the rigidity of Japanese culture and society, especially regarding women. Orie’s voiceovers at the beginning reveal that she is looking for fulfillment, but in the end she has more solitude but less connection with people than before. Women’s liberation has a long way to go in Japan. MH