陽炎座

In watching Kagero-za, I finally finished Seijun Suzuki's  Taisho trilogy.  The Taisho is an interesting period in Japanese history, and Suzuki's take on it is just fascinating.  I'm glad he made this trilogy!  The Taisho is a great period to make a film about because there is just a lot of material available for great visuals eg. a guy in a suit wearing a tophat and a woman in kimono, etc...  Kagero-za is really good, along with Yumeji. Oh, the trilogy DVD covers are pretty funny, too.  Like 90s photoshop awesome.

As far as I can tell, "kagero" means "mist" or "fog"--a reference to the ghostliness of the story and characters. The film is really surreal and that's what I love about Suzuki (my favorite director of all time).  This film makes more sense story & theme-wise than some of Suzuki's other surreal films, and that's what really makes this work.  The acting in the movie is really deliberate; every action was taken so delicately, it was amazing.  The actors were all just great.  Most of them moved (or held still) like professional acrobats or dancers.   They were all really good at portraying sadness as well, it was so real and palpable.

The film had interesting themes as well...the man with two wives, one Japanese and the other German masquerading as Japanese...classic East vs. West themes?  I wonder...

drag geisha

super arty sex scene

this scene was just amazing...filmed using reflections in water.  ghostly.

ok ok another amazing scene

in closing: an awesome picture i found of my favorite director