鈴木 清順 [Suzuki Seijun] (1923-2017) has been, undoubtedly, one of Japan's best film directors of the XX century. At first a polemical director of yakuza flicks at Nikkatsu Studio, then blacklisted for 10 years and from then on a rather obscure experimental director, he only received all the recognition he deserved at the very late period of his life. This three-film box was released right after he died (2017), and right now started the ongoing publication of his works on Blue-Ray by Arrow Video (2018). This excellent compilation of three films corresponds to his last period, and shares both themes and visual atmosphere; Suzuki, known for (and dismissed by) his crazy blend of action, humour, nihilism, psychoanalysis, powerful imaginery and irregular habits of work (as he disliked storyboards and would reject rehearsed scenes in favour of intuitive revelations personally archieved), short of took revenge on Nikkatsu's blacklist by conjurating some of the most enchanting pieces of Japanese surrealism ever made. Previously hard to find both in market and internet, I came across Kagerō-za by pure chance, and even taking into account bad rip quality and hideously bad audio, it really blew my mind away; now, these restaurated versions are bisfully easy to find!
The Taishō Era (roughly 1912 -1926) was a short-lived period of Japanese history caught between the Meiji modernization and Shōwa's militarism in which a very particular integration of both western and traditional culture flourished. A tragic veneer of romanticism, naiveté and decadentism, Taishō saw the first westernized Japanese literati, riding cars and dressed as dappers, surrounded by Modern Gals in cloche hats and parasols. Political liberalism had come at last (for a short time, at least), and, just as in Germany's Weimar, political and philosophical termoil due to people's perception of infinite possibilities ahead was going strong by the week. Yet, traditional thinking did not dissapeared; instead, it
was reimagined and absorbed by literature, most notably ghost stories. These ones, cherished with a passion in Japan, reminded the people about the undercurrent irrationalistic tendencies hidden beneath electric lightning and scientific journals, a psychological space which shared connotations with the traditional street vendors and beggars, Shintō worship, the numinous intuitions of the afterlife. As in many a Soseki novella, these irrational strives of the mind conflate with new ones: those of industrial society, its alienation and intoxicating indulgence.
The Taishō Trilogy shares all these preocuppations, as they all were created after Taishō novels or themes. Zigeunerweisen (1980) is loosely based upon Hyakken Uchida’s novel ''Disk of Sarasate'' [サラサーテの盤]. Kagerō-za (1981) is based upon Kyōka Izumi's novel of the same name [陽炎座]. Yumeji (1991), on the other hand, is a reimagination of painter and poet Takehisa Yumeji [夢二]. These authors are not a random choice; they are some of the most baffling authors of the period, conjuring dreamlike characters and plots by association, with themes emphasizing ghostly tragedy, doppelgängers, medium children, the copresence of death and life. Seijun Suzuki is himself up to the challenge: visually shocking, flamboyant and cryptic, at times grotesque, these are wonderful boundary-dissolving films.
ツィゴイネルワイゼン [Zigeunerweisen] (1980)
Gloriously surrealist, Zigeunerweisen could be labeled terror, but its premise is not that easy; is a supernatural riddle clear as deep dark water at the end of the well: not very clear. Aochi and Nakasago have been friends back from their university years, and constitute polar opposites: while Aochi is a westernized gentleman, style shared by his wife Taeko and his mansion-style house, Nakasago dresses in Japanese clothings (almost rags), lacks any self-control, inhabites a little wooden house and marries a home-bound traditional woman (Sono/O-tani), reminiscent of a geisha (O-Ine) they both once met at a far away seaside. While Aochi is a well-known and respected academic, Nakasago is a maverick, a wanderer who does not care about morality or society, abusing women and engaging in self-destructive habits. Yet, they both share a restlesness, and a lifelessness too: all characters seem to exhudate ennui, which propells them into new forbidden deeds; while Nakasago acts, the rational Aochi, under the guise of empirically examining his crude friend's behaviour, is carried out by him, nevertheless. Death frequently appears in their daily conversations.
These dynamics between them are mirrored by second characters, such as the three blind vagabond musicians, who along the movie transform into child versions of themselves, as they sang crude imperialist hymns of the Japanese army. Nakasago's obsession with death also unfolds slowly but surely, to the point of making a solemn vote to Aochi: whoever dies the first must give his bones to the remaining friend. Scenes and transitions are dreamlike, unfolding non-sequitur consequences: these are hard to describe, and ever-changing. Specially those concerning O-tani; Adachi mets her at the strangest moments, and there are hints that she may be a supernatural being, a bewitcher, a fox. While Adachi grows fascinated with her, Nakasago has a short affair with Taeko, has a child with O-tani and then exposes her to spanish flu, resulting in her death. He then brings her doppelgänger O-Ine to his home, as a wet nurse for the child, Toyoko. Every character and screenshot reveals tension growing up during this second half of the movie: something ominous about the entire situation and Nakasago's journey into the bizarre and the unknown builds up until we're informed he has died of overdose.
The remaining characters keep on in entirely crepuscular scenes (the witch hour in Japanese folklore); Adachi feels a kind of debt to his dead friend, which he seems incapable to concretize. He arrives at O-Ine's deserted and ominous home carrying a solicited copy of the ever-present Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen, or he returns Nakasago's scholarly books. Yet, something is amiss; this atmosphere seems to concretize itself in the child Toyoko, who wanders around the fields with the piercing sound of afterlife's bells, or spies the characters without speaking a word. Yet, as O-Ine tells Adachi, she seems to be talking with his deceased father during entire nights. Surrounded by buddhist imaginery, little Toyoko takes a hint at Adachi, suggesting that maybe he owes his bones to her father, as fairly promised.
Visually jarring, Kagerō-za's plot is remarkably hard to follow, and therefore secondary to the visual expositions of supernatural time and place it offers. Seems to have been the case that, after the unexpected sucess of Zigeunerweisen (and it really was unexpected: producer Genjiro Arato was unable to secure exhibitors for the film and famously exhibited it himself in a specially-built, inflatable, mobile tent) Suzuki was encouraged to go down the rabbit hole of his peculiar vision. The Taishō Trilogy's second feature film takes the cake in portraying an unstable landscape in which characters melt and transform, subverting or confirming the scarce bits of information we barely get, following a ghostly detective-like storyline. Hard to pinpoint the accuracy of the plot as a Kyoka Izumi adaptation since his novel has not been translated from its Japanese original, but given the fact that Suzuki was as creative as Izumi himself, we can guess that only the spirit of the original remains.
Our protagonist, Shunko Matsuzaki, is a playwright supported by a wealthy patron, Tamawaki (as western a man as Zigeunerweisen's Adachi). Tamawaki's obsession for guns and Japanese theatre renders him as necessary as scary and menacing to Matsuzaki, who has no reason to be in the receiving end of a bullet until he meets an all-too-enigmatic woman called Shinako on her way to the hospital. Ethereal and bizarre in her short conversations, she vanishes and reappears in Matsuzaki's way in various occasions, creating a mysterious bond between them. The fact that Shinako seems to be Tamawaki's wife disturbs him, but not as much as the permanent and pervasive suspicion of she being simultaneously alive, dead, and in the process of dying along the film. A liminal figure as Toyoko in the first movie, Shinako guides Matsuzaki along various stages of her life, leading him to Kanazawa, in the countryside. Yet, the murky waters can be darkened: it is revealed that Tamawaki had a second wife (a custom, by the way, still practised in Meiji and Taishō Japan): a german girl named Irene, who was forced to dress, speak and use makeup as a traditional Japanese wife, being given a Japanese name, O-Ine (again!). Of course and then again, she is Shinako's doppelgänger if not by the fact that moonlight reveals her blonde hair and blue eyes, behind the Japanese façade. They endlessly mirror each other, to such a degree that it would be impossible to take a hold on how many times Matsuzaki meets Shinako or O-Ine. Like Joyce's Anna-Livia Plurabelle she becomes an undefined mystery, multiplied to no end.
Tamawaki, who has acknowledged Shinako's death, now warns Matsuzaki of her intention of commiting double suicide with a lover, that would be himself. This latter begins to suspect that he's being lured into a suicide by his unhinged patron, yet follows Shinako's trail convinced of her existence. Secondary plots include a countryside travel with an anarchist and a bizarre wood carver; this would be the first half of the film.
The second half...now, that's what I'm talking about. After meeting O-Ine (for first time?), Matsuzaki ends up running along the railway, reaching a kabuki troupe of children doing rehearsals at a rustic stage on the countryside. Again, we find the trope of children as mediums, for their unnamed play is, in fact, the story of all characters. Particular role as intermediary is indebted to a little girl performing what seems to be a redition of the classic snow dance in the kabuki play Sagi Musume. All these plays seem to confirm the fact that Shinako (present at the performance, as the rest of the cast) is in fact a ghost, who wishes to die a second time. The beautiful set and costume design at this supernatural kabuki is really remarkable, and a feast to the eyes amid the wide confusion and temporal disjointment of Kagerō-za's plot. An immortal scene shows Shinako, as ghost, taking the bridge of Sanzu River as depicted in the theater's background, while the entire building collapses. Then, highly surreal scenes take place, leaving room for various interpretations such as: perhaps Matsuzaki commits suicide, perhaps he doesn't. A constant reference to blade cherries in consonance with the theme of death probably carries a reference to Kyoka Izumi's novel, as many of his novels associate fruits to certain themes (as the famous watermelon in Grass Labyrinth, future reference in Nobuhiko Obayashi's wonderful Hausu). The kabuki scene alone is reminiscent of Izumi, as he also often wrote plays in traditional fashion. Overall a fantastic piece of cinematography, including daring and experimental work in acting, lightning as well as sound, Kagerō-za remains one of the best Japanese arthouse films concerning the supernatural and the mysterious, and one of Suzuki's peak works. Probably one of the best examples in non-linear audiovisual narrative as well.
夢二 [Yumeji] (1991)
Yumeji is peculiar when compared with its predecessors: made 10 years after Kagerō-za, it embellishes the life of a real person, 竹久 夢二 [Takehisa Yumeji] (1884-1934), and his search for beauty and the exotic while surrounded by a troupe of bohemian artsy friends. Artist with no professional titulation, Yumeji began illustrating since his childhood, and became famous through his woodblock prints of 美人画 [Bijin-ga], depictions of beautiful women in Edo fashion. However, he also became known as a writer of short stories, and restlessnessy pursued the theme of individual difference, which not only was prominent in the cultural zeitgeist but also held the key for the particular details of body and personality that create that particular feeling we associate with beauty.
Compared to both previous films of the trilogy, Yumeji appears to be more restrained in its visuals, more realistic and heavily relying in the performance of its actors. This is, however, what it appears to be: down to the core, is as psychedelic and enigmatic as the previous films. Other elements of Suzuki's filmmaking come here to shine; humor and satire for example. There is, also, the theme of phantasmagoria and the constant revision or even inversion of established or past events. The protagonist is, of course, Yumeji (ex-rock star Kenji Sawada) himself, who becomes attracted to Tomoyo, a beautiful and enigmatic widow who expends her evenings riding a boat in a small lake, searching for the body of her late husband Wakiya. Wakiya, perished in a confrontation with Matsu (a fiery lad in Japanese attire who carries a scythe and now hides from the police in Kanazawa's countryside). The setting: Kanazawa, a connection with Kagerō-za's plot of suicidal lovers. Now, Yumeji has contacts there: his lover Hikono, rival painter Gyoshu and over-the-top weirdo and catlike
Oyo, giving an amazing, morbid performance as Yumeji's historical muse お葉 [O You]. Worth watching the movie just because of her, incidentally. Now, Yumeji and friends go to western-style (and Rokumeikan-inspired) soirees, where they happen to find Wakiya, apparently alive and well. In fully western clothing, blonde and of erratic behaviour, he becomes the easy-going yet baffling presence who creates hellish confusion among the cast, including his suppossed wife, who pretends not to know him.
The second act includes a second confrontation between him and runaway Matsu: the theme of a person dying two times cycles again; yet, Wakiya seems to be also an executer: lost his identity as a human being, now circles around previous acquatainces who even attended his funeral. Now, Yumeji's rapport with Tomoyo deepens as to be in love with each other, creating yet another unstable and dangerous relationship of those that, as we see, plague this Taishō Trilogy. In this case, both Wakiya (from his liminal position, in which weird Oyo seems to be comfortable, since they often dance and play together; is she also dead?) and Matsu (from his very real and armed position) become Yumeji's adversaries, with him occupying the most uncomfortable position. These two dangers, that of the supernatural and the real become almost mundane, among various indications of a merging between both worlds which reaches a peak during a night feast in traditional Japanese fashion. That hallucinatory night concludes the Trilogy; many questions remain opened after the very symbolic imaginery: does the murder Matsu commit suicide assisted by Yumeji and Tomoyo? Does Yumeji creates his master work before being killed by Wakiya, who promises to do so? More ambiguous that the eccentric Kagerō-za, Yumeji still offers powerful and astounding images, such as those of Tomoyo's wedding, with pouring rain frozen in time as a set prop, or the ghostly playing ball of Oyo and Wakiya during the feast.
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All in all, The Taishō Trilogy are extremely unique films unmatched in experimentalism, and explore almost untouched possibilies of cinema, also conjuring powerful themes while relying on the unexpected and the visceral to deliver them. Sexuality, dreams, modernity and death became Suzuki's main preoccupations after 10 years of being blacklisted, and then he bottled up the crazy and found a way to present it in gorgeous, unrepeatable fashion. A maverick director for years, Suzuki knew no commercial enterprise would realize his vision of art; he took a chance and, at the end of his life, he gained recognition for that. Now, one can be at the same time grateful for this re-publishing of his life works, and nauseated by the vulture nature of the filmmaking industry, which only allows for difference and experimentalism when they make a buck right at the moment. Claiming for posterity directors who they would have never supported (as it happened to Nobuo Nakagawa as well). Well, enough of that. These have come to be known as his major works, and sometimes (erroneusly) as his
last ones, forgetting about the also experimental Pistol Opera (2001) and the simply wonderful Princess Raccoon (2005). Yet, extreme as The Taishō Trilogy is, many of these themes and even tecniques surface along his noir movies (much to Nikkatsu's dismay); take Branded To Kill as an example, film which earned him being fired and now a renowed masterpiece. I wholeheartedly recommed any and every Seijun Suzuki movie to you, if you find yourself capable to handle him.
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