Elegy to Seijun Suzuki

Elegy to Seijun Suzuki

December 8, 2022–January 15, 2023

To celebrate the publication of William Carroll’s recent book Suzuki Seijun and Postwar Japanese Cinema, BAMPFA is delighted to participate in a tour, organized by the author, of imported 35mm prints of films spanning several decades of Suzuki’s brilliant and varied career.

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  • Film still: two figures in traditional Japanese dress sit on a floor painted with expressive demon imagery in black and red.

    Kagero-za, ©1981 presented by LittleMore Co., Ltd.

  • Tokyo Drifter

  • Fighting Elegy

  • Carmen from Kawachi

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • Tokyo Drifter

    Seijun Suzuki
    Japan, 1966

    Imported 35mm Print

    Thursday, December 8 7 PM

    An embattled ex-yakuza tries to go it alone in Suzuki’s most exquisite collaboration with art director Takeo Kimura. “One of the most brilliant genre movies ever made” (Tony Rayns).

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  • Satan’s Town

    Seijun Suzuki
    Japan, 1956

    Imported 35mm Print

    Saturday, December 10 7 PM

    A “double bill” of Suzuki rarities, this program includes Satan’s Town a heist film and early example of the directors inventive style and black humor; and Love Letter a surreal and haunting snowbound romance.

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  • Fighting Elegy

    Seijun Suzuki
    Japan, 1966

    BAMPFA Collection

    Thursday, December 15 7 PM

    Regarded as one of Suzuki’s best films, ranking twenty-fifth on Kinema Jumpo’s “200 Best Japanese Films List” from 2009, the comic Fighting Elegy is a scathing portrait of the militarism that, in the 1930s, sent young men to war.

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  • Carmen from Kawachi

    Seijun Suzuki
    Japan, 1966

    Imported 35mm Print

    Saturday, December 17 7 PM

    Adapting a novel by the author of The Incorrigible (Akutaro), Suzuki blends satire with melodrama to surrealistic effect to tell the story of provincial factory worker Tsuyuko (portrayed by the director’s favorite actor, Yumiko Nogawa), who tries to rebuild her life after being raped. 

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  • A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness

    Seijun Suzuki
    Japan, 1977

    Imported 35mm Print

    Friday, January 13 7 PM

    Pointedly critical of the homogenizing effects of television and consumerist, bourgeois, suburban existence, A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness focuses on Reiko, a pretty, young golfer who is selected by textile executives to be the new face of their brand. Listed as thirteenth on Kinema Junpo’s “Best Films of 1977.”

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  • Kagero-za

    Seijun Suzuki
    Japan, 1981

    Imported 35mm Print

    Sunday, January 15 7 PM

    Reality, fantasy, life, and afterlife blend together in Kagero-za—most spectacularly in the grand finale, in which the protagonist, Matsuzaki, finds his life morphing into a deranged theatrical extravaganza. “May well be Suzuki’s finest achievement outside the constraints of genre filmmaking” (Tony Rayns).

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