Ray Pride

Seijun Suzuki is one of the more prolific and still little-known Japanese genre directors; that is, if you don't count the filmmakers who are pilfering from movies like "Branded to Kill," "Tokyo Drifter" (both on Criterion DVD) and this 1965 gem. In the climax of this period yakuza entry, a swordfight inside a teahouse is etched with brevity and clarity, and there's at least a half-dozen cuts, framings and spatial notions that find themselves expanded upon to extravagant length in "Kill Bill." Los Angeles Times critic Manohla Dargis has described the "frenzied, voluptuous excess" of Suzuki's work, yet no matter how mannered, or how eccentric the color schemes, Suzuki's work feels emotionally authentic and responsive to the outlandish onscreen goings-on. (One of the antagonists of "Tattooed Life" wears red patent leather Wellington boots which we see close-ups of often, with no explanation offered for his fashionable preciousness.) Suzuki's a practitioner of the purest kind of cinema: sensual, sensuous, hypnotic eruptions of sound and image, of jagged, headlong widescreen images that can exist in no other medium. 87m.

"Tattooed Life" shows Tuesday at Facets at 7pm and 9pm. Also showing as part of the Japanese Outlaw Masters series: Suzuki's 1958 "Underworld Beauty," Masahiro Shinoda's 1962 "Pale Flower," and Yasuharu Hassebe's 1970 "Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter."

(2003-11-05)

Also by Ray Pride

Tip of the Week
Irish documentary makers Kim Bartley and Donnacha O Briain traveled to Venezuela, the world's fourth-largest exporter of oil, at the end of 2001 to shoot a portrait of democratically elected president Hugo Chavez
(2003-10-29)

Looking for Mr. Bad Cop
Of all the scary places not to go, walking into a room with "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" on the TV is one of my least favorite
(2003-10-29)

Passed is prologue
Set on a New England campus, mostly in chilly winter, "The Human Stain" is an adaptation of Philip Roth's intense novel about the later years of an academic accused of being un-PC (Anthony Hopkins) who has, in fact, been a black man passing for white for decades
(2003-10-29)

Short Runs
This week's limited screenings
(2003-10-29)

Acting out
(2003-10-23)

Short Runs
(2003-10-23)

Tip of the Week
(2003-10-22)

Tip of the Week
(2003-10-16)

Chemistry project
(2003-10-16)

Precious moments
(2003-10-16)

Short Runs
(2003-10-16)

Tip of the Week
(2003-10-08)

about Newcitychicago | about Newcity magazine | advertising | privacy policy | FAQ | employment