Yumeji

Reader, I don't give a sailor's tug if Wong Kar-wai got permission to use Yumeji's Theme from the score of this film; a theme that repeats, ad nauseam, in his overrated opus, In The Mood For Love (2000). I think it's a darned liberty, using music scored for one film, and only nine years older, to boost your own. Did Wong have any original music in his film? I don't know. I feel I now understand why a friend, years back, became so upset when music from Vertigo was reused in the French movie, The Artist. To me, it's like sampling in rap and pop, it's basicallt fashionable theft by less talented people.

But anyway...

Yumeji (1991), which I only saw because I read about it on Wiki, having already seen In The Mood For Love, is like Wong's film, part of a loose-limbed trilogy. The last part. It's about a real life artist, Yumeji Takehisa (d.1934). It's a peculiar film, but far more entertaining than the overhyped and frankly somnambulant film by Wong. I'd assume the budget for Yumeji was higher, but who knows, and Wong shot a great deal more than he used.

One interesting deleted scene, from Wong's film, had the appallingly reticent couple actually dancing together, a sort of twist, an injection of energy, of co-ordinated vivacity, that In The Mood could really have used. Happily, Yumeji, by Seijun Suzuki, has multiple dance numbers, and a hamper full of everything else. It is highly theatrical, moving from place to place within its period (the 1910s?), town and country, dry land and water, things traditional and things modern, such as gramophone records.

It starts out in rather a giddy fashion, with Yumeji cavorting with his model, and making love, in the old fashioned sense, to a well brought up lass, who plans to elope with him. Trouble, he is also having dreams of being assassinated by a jealous husband, and of a mysterious lady who will not turn her head. It's not the easiest film to follow. Yumeji comes to an inn, and seeks to make a model out of a lady whose husband has been murdered by a criminal, a local folk hero, still loose in the mountains. Or did the guy really die? Would it be bigamy, adultery, if she and Yumeji? And what about his fine young lass trying to break out and join him, and then there's that other one...

If this all sounds like a sex comedy, it sort of is, and often isn't. It's full of visual flourishes, things photographed birds-eye-view, superimpositions, a yellow boat on a bloody lake, erotic drawings that appear as if from Yumeji's brain in a trice. Nudity is kept to a tasteful minimum, scenes of erotic posing are exactly that. And then there are the surreal party sequences.

There's something vaguely lynchian about Suzuki's atmospherics, his use of colour and shadow, and the quietly menacing, foreboding dreamscape. But the erotic undercurrent is all his own. The musical scoring reminded me, again vaguely, of Alberto Iglesias's work for Julio Medem. I don't know how it ties in to the other movies, but on its own terms it is fascinatingly weird, so you see why I say its lynchian.

Well worth seeking.

Yumeji is the third and final part of director Suzuki Seijun's Taisho Roman Trilogy. It comes around a whopping ten years after its predecessor Kagerô-za that didn't achieve the same critical and financial success as first instalment Zigeunerweisen. Just like its two predecessors, this final entry in the trilogy combines a romantic drama with mysterious supernatural elements.

The story is a semi-faithful biography of painter and poet Takehisa Yumeji. The movie tells how he leaves his best female friend behind to meet a mysterious lover he has only been contacting by mail. The strange lady is however getting sick and faces oppression from her family to join the painter and poet. The protagonist is stuck alone in an inn in the countryside and starts falling in love with the widow who runs it. She is looking for the body of her murdered husband on a nearby lake. He was murdered for desiring a married woman and was thus killed by her violent husband who has since been hiding from the police in the nearby mountains. Things get complicated when the murdered husband turns out to be alive and well and wants to win his wife over again. The unsuccessful murderer however also makes an appearance and wants to finish his tale of vengeance. The protagonist ends up feeling overwhelmed by these drastic changes in his life and starts losing his sanity.

This movie deserves praise for several elements. The settings are absolutely magnificent as the Japanese countryside evokes a magical atmosphere that makes viewers want to visit these locations. The calm, melodic and mysterious soundtrack blends in splendidly to enhance this atmosphere. The plot comes around with a few surprises, many of which are so absurd that this film has an almost humorous touch at times. This unpredictability of events will keep viewers watching until the very end.

However, this movie isn't without several notable flaws. Even though ten years have passed between this film and its predecessor, this movie feels so old-fashioned that it might have been made about a decade earlier. The story features numerous similarities to its two predecessors. The camera techniques haven't evolved one iota in a decade as the director never attempts to try out any new creative turns. This stagnant stability makes it difficult to even consider him a genuine artist and such a lack of development can't be defended by the idea of consistency either. Another issue present throughout the trilogy is yet again the film's slow middle section and its challenging length of one hundred twenty-eight minutes.

At the end of the day, viewers who have been enjoying this film's predecessors Zigeunerweisen and Kagerô-za are also going to be appreciating the concluding Yumeji. This movie convinces with mysterious atmosphere, intriguing plot and stunning settings. However, this third entry suffers from uninspired camera work, slow pace and repetitive themes. Despite a few memorable sequences such as the film's surreal opening that could come straight from a progressive rock music video or the hilarious hunting sequence between the dangerous failed murderer and his cowardly target, this movie is overall the weakest entry in the Taisho Roman Trilogy. It's only recommended to those familiar with its two predecessors and cineasts who appreciate the combination of tragical romantic dramas and atmospheric supernatural elements. In the end, Suzuki Seijun's Taisho Roman Trilogy can be described as an acquired taste that needs much empathy, patience and time to be fully enjoyed. Personally, I'm glad to have watched all three movies but won't be revisiting them for quite a while.

Unwatchable. Thought at first this was some '60s stoner trash, but, after checking, saw that it was made in '91 (when they should have known better). First shot is a double-exposure of chicks hitting underinflated beach balls into the air. "Why am I watching this?" I wondered (and kept wondering throughout). Involuted plot of infidelity, jealousy and murder is talked about in the past tense, but never fleshed out in the present. This detachment and disconnect deflates the movie like those beach balls. "Ghosts" come and go, in-between unappealing, asthenic nudity and sex, and meaningless, introverted dialogue and still shots. So much artsy-fartsy posturing, so little time. Someone, somewhere, sometime must have thought this was "hip."

"Fairly speaking, Suzuki's male protagonists are made up by cowards, Aochi is too retiring and prim to acknowledge his feelings for geisha O-Ine (Ôtani) and her doppelgänger Sono (Ôtani again), Nakasago's ill-treated wife; Shunko is a spooky fool who is none the wiser in the parlous game of temptation and sadomasochism; whereas Yumeji (rocker Sawada) is reduced to a skirt chaser whose raffish charm is lost on audience. Meantime, Suzuki and his scribe Yôzô Tanaka concoct a counterbalance in the person of Yoshio Harada, who appears in all three pictures (although in KAGERO-ZA, his role is a minor one), and basically plays the same character, the fickle, macho, irresponsible type, who is both attracted and repelled by pretty women, a standpoint streams across the trilogy."

read my full review on my blog: cinema omnivore, thanks

Painter and poet Yumeji Takehisa (1884-1934) gets involved with a beautiful widow, becoming a rival of her dead husband's ghost and the jealous lover who murdered him.

Co-star Kenji Sawada's best-known roles include playing in Paul Schrader's biopic movie about Yukio Mishima, "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters" and playing in Takashi Miike's horror-comedy musical "The Happiness of the Katakuris". Yoshio Harada, on the other hand, was a Suzuki regular and appeared in all three parts of the so-called Taisho trilogy.

Rarely seen in America, Arrow Video brings the title to Blu-ray along with the first two parts of the trilogy, and it looks simply fantastic. If only Seijun Suzuki had lived a few months longer, he could have appreciate the love and devotion given to his career.