Teatro das Ilusões (Kagero-za, 1981, Seijun Suzuki)
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Zigeunerweisen, Heat-Haze Theatre / Kagero-za, Yumeji, Do Keto Sapience Dream of Grass Fed Beef?, JAZZ GODFATHER, Me? Xavier!, Yuri Nikubittake. Japanese Film Trailers
Welcome to the fourth and final trailer post of this week.
You can find the first part here, second part here, and third part here.
This week has seen me write a lot in quite condensed periods of time since I have gone back to doing overtime at work and spend more time cooking and watching films and playing games. I reviewed the Banmei Takahashi title Door II: Tokyo Diary (1991) and previewed…
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Hello, I came across one of your asks where you listed your four favourite movies (stating that they changed everyday). You listed Kagero-za. May I ask why you liked it ? I’m super curious because to this day it’s the strangest movie I’ve ever watched. I really couldn’t understand it, I cannot explain, it was such a weird watch. I’m genuinely asking and not necessarily expecting a comprehensive answer, no pressure 😊
Have a nice day !
FINALLY A GOOD QUESTION you should all be asking my about my favorite movies. Thank u for asking tomate-grappe <3
For one I just really love Seijun Suzuki he's one of my absolute favorite directors. I love his bold visual style, I love how the chaos and strangeness of his films come together to make something really beautiful. I love the fierce energy of his films, even with something as long as dreamlike as Kagero-Za. I love how he combines the ridiculous and absurd and tragic, and I love how concerned he is with harm done to women and women's lives. But Kagero-Za is quite unique amongst his filmography so let's talk about that!
Kagero-Za is kind of hard to talk about because it's so weird! Doesn't have much of a plot, does it. That's one of the reasons I love it, actually, how dreamlike and strange and often nightmarish it is. At the same time, it has a kind of internal rhythm to it that just makes sense, it's hypnotizing. It so intentionally it blurs the lines between fiction and reality, life and death; the set of the play-within-a-play literally collapses in the climax. Reflections are everywhere, water, mirrors, so often we're seeing some diaphanous image with only a tenuous relationship to anything "real." I've never felt so, I don't know, pulled along by a film. The protagonist Matsuzaki is resistant, confused, he seems to be pulled into this story against his will. You are my lover and we will die together, says the woman who may or may not be a ghost. No, Matsuzaki says, but he is. Never deciding to do so, he buckles to fate, or god, or this strange undead woman. Cast as the tragic lover in a tragedy that's already happened. When I watch it I sort of feel like Matsuzaki. It's hard to describe, like I have a role in this play too, the audience, and I'm as powerless as him in the face of it.
Kagero-Za has a lot of ideas - about Westernization, about women's internal lives and how men assert themselves over women's bodies and minds, about eroticism, love, lust, about the spiritual and tangible, about fiction and storytelling. But it doesn't address any of them directly, or literally. They all just exist, murky half-formed notions of the subconscious manifesting in this bizzare dream. I've never seen anything quite like it, and I couldn't help but fall in love with it the first time I saw it. It is too long tho. I hope that makes sense to you :)
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how about 39 and 40?
39. In your opinion what is the most underrated movie?
Hmm I may be cheating (again!) by naming three movies that are generally well liked as it is, but in my opinion deserve more attention: Zigeunerweisen, 1980, Kagero-za, 1981 and Yumeji, 1991 directed by S. Suzuki.
40. A film you think everyone should see at least once.
Ulysses' Gaze, 1995 dir. by T. Angelopoulos.
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new-to-me #180 - Kagero-za
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Kagero-za (1981) dir. Seijun Suzuki
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Seijun Suzuki (a Japanese filmmaker, actor, and screenwriter)
Zigeunerweisen ツィゴイネルワイゼン
Kagero-za 陽炎座
Yumeji 夢二
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