Kagero-za
Alternate title(s): Theater of Shimmering Heat
Foreign Title:
Date: January 01, 1981 to February 01, 1982
Dates Note: 1981
Country of Origin:
Japan
Place of Origin: Japan
Languages:
Japanese
Color: Color
Silent: No
Based On: from a story by Kyoka Izumi
Additional Info:
Curator Notes
Film Series/Exhibition Title:
The Films of Seijun SuzukiDescription:
According to critic Tony Rayns, Kagero-za “may well be Suzuki’s finest achievement outside the constraints of genre filmmaking.” In this hallucinatory adaptation of work by the Taisho-era writer Kyoka Izumi, a mysterious woman invites Matsuzaki, a playwright, to another city for a romantic rendezvous. While Matsuzaki is on his way, his patron appears on the train, claiming to be en route to witness a love suicide between a married woman and her lover. Reality, fantasy, life, and afterlife blend together in Kagero-za—most spectacularly in the grand finale, in which Matsuzaki finds his life morphing into a deranged theatrical extravaganza.
Film Series/Exhibition Title:
Taisho Chic on ScreenDescription:
Based on a story by Kyoka Izumi, Kageroza is Seijun Suzuki's even more erotic and enigmatic follow-up to Zigeunerweisen (see November 19). Set in 1926, at the cusp of the Taisho and Sh owa eras, it concerns a playwright who is obsessively in love with the wife of a businessman, and drawn to a ghost who is her close physical counterpart. Izumi "rebelled against the tide of 'westernization' that swept Japan in the Meiji and Taisho eras by looking back to times when Japanese culture was more 'pure'—whereas Suzuki goes even further here than he did in Zigeunerweisen into precisely those areas of cultural 'impurity' that so appalled the author. Kageroza also goes further into the hallucinatory space between reality and fantasy, not by piling on special visual effects but by making the characters' uncertainties the very foundation of the story. This movie may well be Suzuki's finest achievement outside the constraints of genre filmmaking"
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