Nackt und verdammt

Reviews of a Seijun Suzuki film tend to be dominated by discourse on the director's much-vaunted iconoclastic stylistics and Nikkatsu failure of vision in their treatment of him. While Suzuki's arrhythmic editing, bold use of effects, slow-motion, and emotive performances differentiate the film from the generic fare of the time, there is as much miss as hit regarding enhancement of narrative in Suzuki's helming.

Story of a Prostitute is about Harumi, a working girl cruelly dumped by her lover who takes vengeance by throwing herself into the grueling world of the so-called 'comfort women' servicing the Imperial Army in China. There she meets Mikami, an unreformed nationalist, and their ill-fated love plays out against a backdrop of WWII endgame.

Harumi is certainly a force, and her power, drive extremes of agony and ecstasy give her a powerful on-screen presence. She wails, uncontrollably, in close-up, a slow-motion shot no less, and the raw anguish is viscerally present. The fact that the situation she and Mikami find themselves in is hopeless drains the film of dramatic tension. The compensation is keenly observed characters who comment on their situation without finger-wagging. The absurdity of Japan's war effort is best captured by Ono, a deserter who takes up with the Chinese and preaches the 'dishonorable' credo that it is better to live. Officers spout that it is more dignified to die in battle for the Emperor, the irony being these are words spoken while sprawled drunk on the floor of a brothel. A Chinese prostitute whines that she is paid less than her Japanese counterparts. Soldiers drink, fornicate and hope they can make it to the next day. The landscape is almost lunar, begging the question of what, exactly, they are fighting for possession of.

The futility of war is an expertly painted background, but overshadowed by the melodramas of lives lived. Without Suzuki's unconventional approach this film would be quickly forgotten, but the camera movement, stark sets revealed in deep focus, and humanity and absurdity of the minor characters keeps this film fresh. Harumi is the embodiment of the will to live, if not exactly to live well. Having said that, the histrionics begin to grate after a while, and a stronger plot would raise this film to greater heights.

Neither a B-film nor a masterpiece, but simply another watchable outing from a unique filmmaker.

Presumably one of the "movies that didn't make sense" that led Nikkatsu Studios to promptly fire Suzuki after BRANDED TO KILL, in the process turning him into an icon of artistic defiance that inspired may, STORY OF A PROSTITUTE is at the same time a war melodrama, a rather conventional love story that you could see come out from Hollywood in the 50's, but also a Seijun Suzuki film. A genre director who slaved away from b-movie to b-movie working from scripts that had little difference from one to the next, Suzuki developed, out of artistic frustration with the trappings of cookie cutter studio film-making, an irreverent visual grammar which existed for its own pleasure. In his own way, perhaps unwittingly, he was making New Wave before most.

Here we find both facets of his work, a crowdpleasing genre film and a sumptuous celebration of a visual cinema.

But unlike stuff like TOKYO DRIFTER, or indeed Branded to Kill, films that often appeared to be little more than empty exercises in stylish bravura where the only reward possible for the viewer was a confirmation of Suzuki's bold, audacious approach, Story has a dramatic heart. The director approaches the love story between Mirakami, an orderly to an abusive adjutant who is brainwashed to docile acceptance of military authority, and Harumi, a passionate prostitute working a Japanese camp somewhere in Manchuria in the days of WWII, with sincerity and honesty.

In the same time he punctuates the main plot with set-pieces that truly dazzle with their inventiveness. Harumi running through a shellshocked battlefield to an injured Mirakami; Harumi's fantasy of Mirakami rushing in slow-motion through a white-washed scene to save her from the abusive officer. All this filmed in stark black and white, with fast tracking shots around walls and behind wooden panels, beautiful exterior shots of Manchurian landscapes which dwarf the figures walking them, intricate framing in depth and poignant symbolic touches that give an almost existential air to proceedings.

"Sunpu Den" is a film from director Seijun Suzuki is both anti-war and anti-prostitution, as it paints a bleak story of a young woman, Harumi. The story begins with Harumi being dumped by her boyfriend. In reaction, she volunteers to be a 'comfort woman' on the Japanese front lines in China. The comfort women were prostitutes provided by the government for the troops--and this small group of women are to satisfy the sexual needs of a thousand men! To make things worse, the Adjutant in charge is a brutal jerk who mistreats the women. Harumi hates him, though she later falls in love with this man's assistant. What happens next is a tragic waste of life and is an indictment of the Japanese war machine.

This is what you might call a 'feel-bad movie'. It is meant to be sad and awful and it is. The film is compelling viewing but isn't nearly as good as other Japanese anti-war films like "Burmese Harp" or "Fires on the Plain". Very good but not great.

This film centers on Harumi (the great Yumiko Nogawa), who is a "comfort woman" who goes to the Manchurian Front in China during the war to service the men fighting there. From the beginning you know she has nothing left to lose. As you would expect, this movie has scenes which are pretty brutal, including violence and rape. However, Mr. Suzuki makes this film's pacing so superb, you can look beyond this and just keep watching to see what will happen next. Harumi's reactions and expressions in this film are amazing, Ms. Nogawa gives a performance of a lifetime. You understand her struggle, but more so you understand her heart. She falls in love and you know its no lie. You want her to have some measure of happiness in what is depicted here as a very cruel world. Not everyone can watch this of course, its violent and its a war picture. But this film had me spellbound to the last frame, and that is a ringing endorsement.

Sunpu Den is a remake of AKATSUKI NO DASSO wrote by Kurosawa in 1950, then Seijun Suzuki approaches it more deeply than a dramatic romance that was his forerunner, whereby didn't show the sexual relationship at army's bro.thel, so Sunpu Den is too much daring for its period of time, by this the movie was hard beaten by the critics at release time, regarded as a cheap sexploitation, also Suzuki imposes a slight nihilism narrative to counteract the ruthlessness of the war, the plot is underpinned in the legendary Japanese inexorable honor code where no soldier shouln't go back alive if caught in enemy hands, such act is punished by death.

As Seijun Suzuki was a former soldier exposes some oddities carried out at wartime, it somewhat became more realistic from a vision whom stayed there and witnessed such real facts, as those soldiers refusing kill Mikami (Tamio Kawaji) in a desert area in a phony battle to conceal his guilty for being prisoner of war and some funny moments at Chinese's village when the squad returning from the front fight themselves by the best girls, actually as anti-war offering Suzuki imposes an overview less gloomy on the drama.

Oddly enough as B-production of Nikkatsu studio it overcame the bad reputation on sixties thru the times, today Sunpu Den earned several defenders and became a mandatory peace nowadays, many aspects assert such thing as the unusual cinematograph made by Suzuki's old acquaintance and partnership Kazue Nakatsuka, a must to see.

Thanks for reading.

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First watch: 2024 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8.5.