DVD REVIEW<\/p>\n
SPOTLIGHT ON:\u00a0 SEIJUN SUZUKI<\/strong><\/p>\n Director of \u201cStory of a Prostitute\u201d & \u201cGate of Flesh\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n By Lyle Sylvander (Yokohama-shi, 2001-02)<\/em><\/p>\n (Winter 2006 Issue of the JETAA NY Newsletter)<\/span><\/p>\n Japan\u2019s Golden Age of Cinema, which flourished during the 1950s and 1960s, supplied the international film circuit with a steady diet of respectable award-winning films.\u00a0 However, far from the lights and glamour of the Cannes and Venice film festivals, a different type of film vied for the attention of domestic audiences.\u00a0 Unlike their more distinguished kin, these films had no artistic pretensions.\u00a0 They were the low-budget series of B-movies whose sole purpose was to make a quick yen.\u00a0 Nikkatsu Productions<\/strong> dominated the circuit and left the high-brow and bigger budget epics to the more established studios.\u00a0 While working within a limited number of genres \u2013 predominantly the yakuza and \u201cprostitute\u201d film \u2013 the directors were nevertheless granted a certain amount of creative leeway.\u00a0 As long as the film delivered what the producers wanted \u2013 sex and violence \u2013 directors were free to use the resources of the limited budget to their advantage.\u00a0 Seijun Suzuki<\/strong>, working under contract with Nikkatsu, flourished in this type of setting.\u00a0 Best known for his series of pop art yakuza films (Tokyo Drifter<\/em>, Branded to Kill<\/em>), Suzuki directed two \u201cprostitute\u201d films – Story of a Prostitute<\/em> (1965) and Gate of Flesh<\/em> (1964) \u2013 that take place before and after the war respectively.\u00a0 Both films are based on novels by Tajiro Tamura<\/strong> and have been simultaneously released on DVD by The Criterion Collection<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Story of a Prostitute<\/em> is a tragedy about comfort women serving Japanese soldiers on the Manchurian front in 1937.\u00a0 The protagonist, Harumi, is played with ferocious fearlessness by Yumiko Nagawa<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0 The heart of the film revolves around a struggle of wills between her and the tyrannical Lieutenant Narito, played by Isao Tamagawa<\/strong>.\u00a0 He personifies the ruthless imperial military mindset, dehumanizing everything in his path while she is the vehement woman warrior, who\u2019s brutal only to survive.\u00a0 Private Mikami (Tamio Kawachi<\/strong>) enters Harumi\u2019s life and offers the hope of redemption.\u00a0 He is a soldier who has been demoted and passively accepts Narita\u2019s corporal punishment as a form of penance.\u00a0 Their experience is not a happy one, however, as his desire to redeem himself as a soldier conflicts with her determination to flee the war.\u00a0 Ultimately his steadfastness in the face of her resolve leads to the destruction of both.\u00a0 Throughout the film, Suzuki employs such New Wave techniques as reverse negatives, quick cuts, deep focus black and white Gate of Flesh<\/em> takes place after the war and can be seen as a chronological sequel.\u00a0 Indeed, if Harumi had survived the war, she may have found herself among the street denizens and black marketers that populate Gate of Flesh<\/em>\u2019s American-occupied Tokyo. Once again, the story focuses on prostitutes, although Suzuki uses five protagonists this time around.\u00a0 Into the decrepit underworld of Maya (Yumiko Nogawa<\/strong>), Oroku (Tamiko Ishii<\/strong>), Sen (Satoko Kasai<\/strong>), Machiko (Misako Tominaga<\/strong>) and Omino (Kayo Matsuo<\/strong>) comes ex-soldier Ibuki (Joe Shishido<\/strong>).\u00a0 Ibuki is running from the military authorities and finds refuge within the bombed out building the women call home.\u00a0 As Maya falls in love with him, she violates the \u201crules of the house,\u201d in which free sex (i.e., love) is not allowed.\u00a0 As in Story of a Prostitute<\/em>, Suzuki eschews realism for a surrealistic approach \u2013 this time through a heightened sense of theatricality.\u00a0 Forced to shoot with little money, Suzuki and his production designer, Takeo Kimura<\/strong>, make no attempt to conceal the artificialness of the set.\u00a0\u00a0 The bombed out buildings are meant to look fake and are propped up within the walls of an obvious soundstage.\u00a0 Suzuki coordinates his five female characters by costume color and, at one point, even shines a spotlight on Sen.\u00a0 Despite these stylistic flourishes, the film struggles to transcend its exploitative B-movie constraints.\u00a0 This is unfortunate, for, unlike Story of a Prostitute<\/em>, Gate of Flesh<\/em> is a victim of its studio\u2019s low commercial aspirations.\u00a0 Violence and sex are presented on the literal level and there is little narrative to sustain one\u2019s interest.\u00a0 None of the characters have the energy or dynamism as those in Story<\/em> and one longs for a Harumi or Narito to arrive and shake things up.<\/p>\n It is interesting to note that Gate of Flesh<\/em>, the inferior of the two films, was a big hit in Japan while Story of a <\/em>Prostitute<\/em> flopped.\u00a0 Both films are antiwar and portray the military machine as imperialistic and brutal.\u00a0 Suzuki seems to attack the horror and viciousness of war in general \u2013 not just on the battlefield but in the psyches of those affected by it.\u00a0 The difference in the commercial fates of the two films can perhaps be explained by the nationality of the exploiter.\u00a0 In Gate<\/em> the source of misery is the American military; in Story<\/em>, it is Japan\u2019s.\u00a0\u00a0 One wonders if Japanese audiences, able to sympathize with the destruction of their homeland at the hands of a foreign occupier, were unable to come to terms with their own military past.\u00a0 Despite Gate<\/em>\u2019s shortcomings, viewing it after Story of a Prostitute<\/em> is a valuable experience from this socio-historical perspective.\u00a0 Once again, The Criterion Collection has provided a valuable service to fans of Japanese cinema with their simultaneous release of these two films.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" DVD REVIEW SPOTLIGHT ON:\u00a0 SEIJUN SUZUKI Director of \u201cStory of a Prostitute\u201d & \u201cGate of Flesh\u201d By Lyle Sylvander (Yokohama-shi, 2001-02) (Winter 2006 Issue of the JETAA NY Newsletter) Japan\u2019s Golden Age of Cinema, which flourished during the 1950s and 1960s, supplied the international film circuit with a steady diet of respectable award-winning films.\u00a0 However, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":59,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-384","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/PkZ7m-6c","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":703,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/384\/revisions\/703"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/59"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nphotography and slow motion to create a heightened surrealistic anxiety.\u00a0 Most jarring is Harumi\u2019s point-of-view shot of Mikami \u2013 his frame freezes and then shatters into many pieces.\u00a0 Suzuki served in the Japanese navy during World War Two and, in an interview on the Gate of Flesh<\/em> disc, comments on the surreal brutality of war.\u00a0 Directing from first hand experience, Suzuki demonstrates an impressive technical prowess, especially considering the constraints of his budget.<\/p>\n