#269: SUZUKI, Seijun: Fighting Elegy (1966)
SUZUKI, Seijun (Japan)
Commentary
None.
Fighting Elegy [1966]
Spine #269
DVD
DVD
High schooler Kiroku Nanbu yearns for the prim, Catholic Michiko, but her only desire is to reform Kiroku's sinful tendencies. Hormones raging, Kiroku channels his unsatisfied lust into the only outlet available: savage, crazed violence. Fighting Elegy (Kenka Erejii) is a unique masterpiece in the diverse career of Seijun Suzuki, combining the director's signature bravura visual style with a brilliantly focused satire of machismo and fascism.
86 minutes
Black & White
Black & White
Monaural
in Japanese
2:35:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2005
Director/Writers
Based on the novel by Takashi Suzuki.
Screenplay by Kaneto Shindô.
Seijun Suzuki was 43 when he directed Fighting Elegy.
The Film
Other Suzuki films in the Collection:
Eclipse Series 17: Take Aim At The Police Van (1960)
#268: Youth Of The Beast (1963)
#298: Gate Of Flesh (1964)
Eclipse Series 17: Take Aim At The Police Van (1960)
#268: Youth Of The Beast (1963)
#298: Gate Of Flesh (1964)
The Film
For a director who supposedly making “B” pictures, Suzuki never shied away from heavy or controversial subjects. (Read about his war experiences by clicking on his name, above.)
As late as the date of this film (1966), the subject of the militarization of Japan was still a touchy one, with the popularity of celebrities like the right-wing writer Yukio Mishima (see Paul Schrader’s Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters [1985] {Spine #432} and Mishima’s own film, Patriotism [1966] {Spine #433}) and a general attitude of wishing to whitewash the events of this period.
**
Kiroku Nanbu (Hideki Takahashi) is just a hot-headed city kid in 1935 Japan. Though a full-scale invasion of China was still a few years in the future, Japan had already conquered Manchuria. The “fighting spirit” had certainly seeped down to these hot-to-trot teenagers …
He is also a Catholic, living in a home with a young girl, Michiko (Junko Asano [she must not have enjoyed acting very much; she never made another film after this one]), who has recently lost her father, and seems to drown herself in her piano playing.
There is plenty of fighting, but the subtext of the elegy is there for the discerning viewer to discover.
Suzuki imposes a real-life figure near the end of the film. For details, see the February 26 Incident.
“Suzuki Seijun was forty-three years old when he made Fighting Elegy, his penultimate film for Nikkatsu, but it was — and remains — a wonderfully youthful movie. A subversively funny account of the making of a model fascist, it goes where no film before had gone in search of comic insights into the adolescent male mind. It’s set in the mid-1930s, at the precise moment when militarism consolidated its grip on the imagination of young Japanese men — a moment, therefore, that fueled the country’s imperialist ambitions in East Asia and ultimately led to the Pacific War. To look back at that time from 1966 was to raise unresolved issues of nationalism and Japanese identity, issues still as relevant to many young people as to those of Suzuki’s generation who had been conscripted to fight.”
None.
I wish Tony Rayns had done one.
Original theatrical trailer
Like many Japanese trailers, there are few outtakes included that didn’t make the final cut …
Extras Rating (0-40):
Original theatrical trailer
Like many Japanese trailers, there are few outtakes included that didn’t make the final cut …
Extras Rating (0-40):
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