★ 8 / 10
Absurdist masterpiece Yumeji stands out among Seijun Suzukis
R T
Absurdist masterpiece Yumeji stands out among Seijun Suzukis voluminous production as his most daring work. Inspired by symbolist painters such as Beardsley…
Absurdist masterpiece Yumeji stands out among Seijun Suzukis voluminous production as his most daring work. Inspired by symbolist painters such as Beardsley, the film is a virtual visual feast. Notorious rockstar Kenji Sawada is a perfect fit as the somewhat scandalous real-life painter Yumeji Takehisa. A superb soundtrack by Shigeru Umebayashi.
★ 8 / 10
The last film of Taisho trilogy in a
nick s
The last film of Taisho trilogy in a very surrealistic tone tells a story of Japanese painter and poet Takahisa Yumeji (1884-1934) encountering several…
The last film of Taisho trilogy in a very surrealistic tone tells a story of Japanese painter and poet Takahisa Yumeji (1884-1934) encountering several mistresses and his rival artist Gyoshu Inomura who is arguably more talented than Yumeji (portrayed by Kenji Savada). Throughout the account on the screen, we get a glance on the psychological and art struggles of the painter who is seeking the perfection and inspiration for his paintings.
The tantalizing tale is enhanced with numerous surrealistic forms, characters, images and entire scenes. It is also impossible to follow the stream of the tale before we get an idea we bump into the artistic fantasies of Yumeji, and the line between the death-life and reality-fiction is painted by Yumeji himself. The bizarre work of camera moving from the left to the right, and back again and showing the scenes with unusual composition and angles illustrate this far-fetched definition of different dimensions which unite and mix up in Yumeji's mind. The story contains both surrealistic scenes and detective-like motif, though It is not entirely clear whether Wakiya (played by Yoshio Harada) has been actually murdered or not, and it is unclear if the whole story ever took place in the reality. The endless riddles bridge the gap between Suzuki and Buñuel with Robbe-Grillet.
What is certain is that the film tells about Yumeji's perception of the art and women which are pretty much related in his life. There is no mood for art without passion Yumeji chases women with. He encounters the most beautiful ladies and seduces them, but he doesn't love them in a human way. His fetish is about their postures, outfits, behavoiur is utilized for the ideas of paintings, and the women's beauty for him is nothing but inspiration for art and poetry. He feeds himself on their boundless sexuality and allure like a vampire, and he is so addicted to their beauty that women, in fact, define his art. We see Yumeji is in the relationships with a woman who loves him, but the artistical mindset makes him seduce the other women as potential models or nudies.
Seijun Suzuki shows the gorgeous women and their perfect bodies in abundance to immerse himself and viewers in Yumeji's fetish (and probably the director's fetishism as well). The scenes with Tomoyo (played by Tomoko Mariya) and Hikono (Masumi Miyazaki) are charged with the enthralling sexuality the female protagonists radiate. They are frequently shot as the paintings, and this images strike with the boundless beauty Yumeji and the viewers fully immerse into. This is a very sexy and surreal fantasy which resembles Alain Robbe-Grillet's L'Eden et après in an artistic way and Trans-Europ Express by the manner of storytelling. The usage of aggressive montage and dense colours reminds of the style of La Chinoise by Jean-Luc Godard.
To sum up, Yumeji is a set of fetish fantasies made like a collection of his paintings he could have possibly completed. Every shot is like a painting where mise-en-scene stuns with beauty and bizarre mesmerizing power. The story is hard to follow and riddles might be very confusing, but it can be interpreted in many ways. Yumeji is important and striking as an art object and surrealistic experiment, yet there is probably no way to delve too deep into the film: it is much better to enjoy the sophisticated shots and the beauty of Yumeji's mistresses portrayed by Tomoko Mariya, Masumi Miyazaki, and Reona Hirota. The last but not the least thing is the usage of music. This is the film Shigeru Umebayashi has written his brilliant and sublime music theme Yumeji for. Later the same theme would find international acclaim after being remarkably used in the film of Wong Kar-wai In the Mood for Love.
★ 8 / 10
My favorite of the 'trilogy", this movie was
R T
my favorite of the 'trilogy", this movie was totally beautiful, a beautiful score as well, the characters and events - which seem secondary to mood, visuals…
my favorite of the 'trilogy", this movie was totally beautiful, a beautiful score as well, the characters and events - which seem secondary to mood, visuals, motif and set pieces - all seem to repeat or some how fold in on themselves in a dream like way. Very good film.
83%
AUDIENCE
· 100 ratings
6.9/10
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