[Film Review] Zigeunerweisen (1980), Kagero-za (1981) and Yumeji (1991)
Seijun Suzuki’s The Taisho Trilogy marks the apex of his artistic idiom, a style that is totally detached from his previous works of B-quality yakuza quickies. The trilogy successfully reinstates Suzuki as a virtuoso filmmaker after he fell out with the studio and went independent.
All three films are set in the Taisho era (1912-1926), and their male protagonists are intellectuals, in ZIGEUNERWEISEN, Aochi (a hunched Fujita, a fellow movie director dips his toes into performing in front of the camera), a professor of German, is gravitated to his former colleague-turned-nomad Nakasago (Harada) and his unconventional relationship with women, which could imperil Aochi’s own passionless marriage; in KAGERO-ZA, a playwright named Shunko Matsuzaki (Matsuda) is involuntarily hooked up with the wife of his patron, but is she a ghost with a grudge? And YUMEJI is a faux-biography treatment of Yumeji Takehisa (1884-1932), a Japanese poet and painter, whose creativity and inspiration gets mired in his abandon of wine, women, and song.
Fairly speaking, Suzuki’s male protagonists are made up by cowards, Aochi is too retiring and prim to acknowledge his feelings for geisha O-Ine (Ôtani) and her doppelgänger Sono (Ôtani again), Nakasago’s ill-treated wife; Shunko is a spooky fool who is none the wiser in the parlous game of temptation and sadomasochism; whereas Yumeji (rocker Sawada) is reduced to a skirt chaser whose raffish charm is lost on audience. Meantime, Suzuki and his scribe Yôzô Tanaka concoct a counterbalance in the person of Yoshio Harada, who appears in all three pictures (although in KAGERO-ZA, his role is a minor one), and basically plays the same character, the fickle, macho, irresponsible type, who is both attracted and repelled by pretty women, a standpoint streams across the trilogy.
Conversely, the petticoat presentation goes to the mystical, women are insubordinate despite of ostensible submission. In ZIGEUNERWEISEN, Aochi’s anachronistically coiffured wife Shuko (Yasuda, who also play three prominent characters in the trilogy and each time, carries off a different facade of the inscrutability of femininity) is (possibly fantasticated as) a bold temptress, an eroticized and emasculating tease; in KAGERO-ZA, Shinako (Yasuda again, peculiarly prim-looking), the phantom-like entity seduces and mesmerizes Shunko, can not be pinned down with any concrete conclusion, like a banshee, she wails for destruction, but she will not go down that path all by herself; in YUMEJI, variety increases, Tomoyo (Mariya) is a widow who entices and bemuses Yumeji, Hikono (Miyazaki) is the girl who loves him unconditionally, Oyo (Hirota), a frisky fangirl, is good for a fling. Thus the question is, which one is the muse he looks for? None would be a surprising answer.
Suzuki’s stream of consciousness fluidity is so adroit in nailing the yawning gender divide, the mutual incomprehensibility between the two sexes, and his imagery, with the gradation from colorfully subdued to profusely garish (culminated in YUMEJI, an chromatic feast almost too ornate by half), is an astonishing achievement, consistently striking through the trilogy: red crabs out of a dead woman’s crotch, solarized effect, porcelain dolls with erotic drawing inside, particolored balloons, just to name a few off the top of my head. They are so felicitous to the background (whether natural or artificial) and idiosyncratically expressive, their lusciousness is nearly ASMR-inducing. Then, the impeccable compositions often articulated with languid movements (beware of off-the-wall mirror images!), the rich scores mingling together traditional ear candies, jazz-infused effusion (Shigeru Umebayashi’s prominent theme strain of YUMEJi would later be plundered by Wong Kar Wai in his seminal mood-setter IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, 2000) and the recurring Zigeunerweisen for sure, Suzuki’s avant-garde style is so profoundly rooted in the Japanese culture and mentality, yet, his conceit is transgressively modern, pace is deliberately slow, performances are highly theatrical while he flouts the boundary of storytelling.
The truth is, in all three films, the meandering plots never reach a point of clarity, they are dismembered along the line (all three features run over 2 hrs), yet, strangely enough, it is not exasperating, since it is Suzuki’s style of expression becomes the cynosure. Each time, audience are tickled to savor the transcendentally arranged scenery, rather than to decipher the signification of words or actions (which are sometimes contradictory and inconsistent). That said, if one watches all three in a row, it is liable to feel somewhat fatigued, since each film doesn’t possess enough personality to distinguish itself from the other two. Which explains why their ratings are descending, although KAGERO-ZA orchestrates a crucial Noh play to apparently explain the crux, how one can appreciate it varies differently.
By my lights, ZIGEUNERWEISEN is the best among the trinity, for being a more ludic and freewheeling vehicle that is almost unperturbed by affective force, and its psychic elements are more pellucid (a young daughter communicates with her dead father through dreams, versus the elusive suicidal pact in KAGERO-ZA), plus the inclusion of a triad of blind mendicant minstrels, chanting ribald ditties while the hierarchy of their sex preference goes through an irreverent modulation. And my final counsel is one picture at a time, The Taisho Trilogy is a rich mine where numen prevails and creativity brims.
referential entries: Suzuki’s PRINCESS RACOON (2005, 6.5/10); Kon Ichikawa’s THE MAKIOKA SISTERS (1983, 8.1/10).
Title: Zigeunerweisen
Original Title: Tsigoineruwaizen
Year: 1980
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Genre: Mystery
Director: Seijun Suzuki
Screenwriter: Yôzô Tanaka
based on the novel by Hyakken Uchida
Music: Kaname Karachi
Cinematography: Kazue Nagatsuka
Editing: Nobutake Kamiya
Cast:
Toshiya Fujita
Naoko Ôtani
Yoshio Harada
Michiyo Yasuda
Kisako Makishi
Akaji Maro
Kirin Kiki
Isao Tamagawa
Rating: 7.9/10
Title: Kagero-za
Year: 1981
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Genre: Fantasy, Thriller, Romance
Director: Seijun Suzuki
Screenwriter: Yôzô Tanaka
based on the novel by Kyoka Izumi
Music: Kaname Karachi
Cinematography: Kazue Nagatsuka
Editing: Akira Suzuki
Cast:
Yûsaku Matsuda
Michiyo Yasuda
Katsuo Nakamura
Mariko Kaga
Eriko Kusuda
Ryûtarô Ôtomo
Yoshio Harada
Emiko Azuma
Rating: 7.8/10
Title: Yumeji
Year: 1991
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Genre: Drama
Director: Seijun Suzuki
Screenwriter: Yôzô Tanaka
Music: Shigeru Umebayashi
Cinematography: Jun’ichi Fujisawa
Editing: Akira Suzuki
Cast:
Kenji Sawada
Tomoko Mariya
Yoshio Harada
Leona Hirota
Masumi Miyazaki
Kazuhiko Hasegawa
Michiyo Yasuda
Akaji Maro
Tamasaburô Bandô
Kimiko Yo
Chikako Miyagi
Rating: 7.6/10
