Fighting Elegy

Japan in the mid thirties. Kiroku is a schoolboy at a Catholic school. He is in love with his landlord's daughter, but she is devout and he can say nothing to her. He puts all his energy into fighting: he joins groups at school, organises brawls, fights in the street, and he is good at it. Fighting is the outlet for everything he holds down. In those same years the nationalist movement inside the army is gaining strength. Seijun Suzuki directs. It is a Nikkatsu production. The idea is suppressed desire turning into violence and what that corresponds to socially. The narrative starts from individual brawling and connects to the country's slide into militarism; the last scene refers to the attempted military coup of 1936. Suzuki uses the shape of comedy; the fights are exaggerated and funny, while where the film arrives is not funny at all. The visual style is Suzuki's known manner: black and white contrast, abrupt cutting, strange framing and transitions that push against studio rules. Suzuki was in constant conflict with the studio in this period and was dismissed shortly afterwards, on the grounds that his films were incomprehensible. The character at the centre is not sympathetic and the film does not correct him. Who it is for: viewers who like Japanese cinema of the sixties and formally sharp films. Who it is not for: the humour is strange, the narrative jumps, and the ending is unintelligible without the historical references.