is a 1980 independent Japanese film directed by Seijun Suzuki and based on Hyakken Uchida's novel, Disk of Sarasate. It takes its title from a gramophone recording of Pablo de Sarasate's violin composition, Zigeunerweisen, which features prominently in the story. The film makes the first part of Suzuki's Taishō Roman Trilogy, followed by Kagero-za (1981) and Yumeji (1991), surrealistic psychological dramas and ghost stories linked by style, themes and the Taishō period (1912-1926) setting. All three were produced by Genjiro Arato.
When
exhibitors declined to screen the
film, Arato screened it himself in an inflatable, mobile tent to
great success. It won Honourable Mention at the
Berlin International Film
Festival, was nominated for nine
Japanese Academy Awards and won
four, including best director and best film, and was voted the
number one Japanese film of the 1980s by Japanese critics.
Synopsis
Vacationing in a small seaside village, Aochi, a professor of
German, runs into Nakasago, a former colleague turned nomad.
Nakasago is being pursued by an angry mob for allegedly seducing
and killing a fisherman's wife. Police intervene and Aochi vouches
for his friend, preventing his arrest. The two catch up over dinner
where they are entertained by and become smitten with the mourning
geisha Koine. Six months later, Aochi visits
his friend and is shocked to find he's settled down and is having a
child with Sono, a woman who bears a
remarkable resemblance to Koine. Nakasago
plays him a recording of
Zigeunerweisen and they discuss
inaudible mumbling on the record. Nakasago suddenly takes to the
road again with Koine, leaving Sono to birth their child alone.
Both men enter affairs with the other's wife. Sono later dies of
the flu and is replaced by Koine as a surrogate mother. Nakasago
takes to the road yet again. Aochi learns of Nakasago's death in a
landslide. Koine visits Aochi and requests the return of the
Zigeunerweisen record but he is sure he never borrowed
it.
Cast
Production
Director
Seijun Suzuki was ostensibly
terminated from his contract with
Nikkatsu
Studios in 1968 for making "movies that make no sense and no money"
and subsequently
blacklisted. In the
proceeding years he met frequently with his crew at his home in
developing ideas for new projects. This resulted in
Zigeunerweisen and
Kagero-za—the first two films in what would
become Suzuki's Taishō Roman Trilogy. Suzuki felt that
action films were falling out of favour and
wanted to create a new type of film. Writer Yōzō Tanaka lived close
by and visited Suzuki regularly where they infrequently discussed
the film during games of
Go. The
story was based on
Hyakken Uchida's
novel,
Disk of Sarasate. It was felt to be too short and
was expanded from their conversations. For example, when Tanaka's
uncle died during that time, he noticed that his cremated bones
were pink. This was incorporated into the screenplay.
Suzuki's de facto blacklisting ended with the release of his
critically and commercially unsuccessful 1977 film
A Tale of Sorrow and
Sadness. The money to finance
Zigeunerweisen only
became available in 1979 when Suzuki met then–theatre producer
Genjiro Arato. Thus it became their
first fully
independently produced
film. It was shot on location in Japan.
Style and themes
Zigeunerweisen is a departure from director Suzuki
Seijun's
Nikkatsu films in many ways. It
was shot entirely on location without access to studio resources;
it runs 144 minutes, in contrast to the former's 90-minute maximum;
and its intellectual characters and
period setting and subject matter invited a
more literary audience as opposed to the younger
genre fans that formed Suzuki's
cult following. On the other hand, freed of
studio constraints, Suzuki was able to carry his style even further
in the direction his genre work had taken and abandon traditional
narrative entirely in favour of random occurrences and incongruous
and misleading associations. He presents, comments on and
challenges the conceptions of the Taishō era, specifically the wide
introduction and assimilation of
Western
culture into Japan and its effect on the Japanese
identity.
Releases and reception
Producer Genjiro Arato was unable to procure exhibitors for
Zigeunerweisen and exhibited the film himself with his
company Cinema Placet in a specially-built, inflatable, mobile
tent.
The
film was initially screened beside the Tokyo Dome
on April 1, 1980. The film was an immediate success and was
quickly picked up for a
wide release.
In its 22-week run it sold 56 000 seats, where 10 000 was
generally considered a success for an independent film. Critics
named
Zigeunerweisen the "must-see" film of 1980, it
garnered four
Japanese
Academy Awards and reignited Suzuki's career. Little More Co.
re-released the full Taishō Roman Trilogy theatrically on
April 28,
2001, in the
Deep
Seijun retrospective. In conjunction they released the trilogy
on
DVD (without English subtitles),
marking its debut on
home video.
The film was not distributed internationally but did appear in film
festivals and retrospectives. For example, it was in competition at
the 1981
Berlin
International Film Festival and appeared in the first British
retrospective of Suzuki's films at the 1988
Edinburgh International
Film Festival. In North American,
Kino International released a
DVD edition of the film on
March 7,
2006. It features a 25 minute interview with Suzuki
discussing the making of the Taishō Roman Trilogy, a biography and
filmography of the same, the theatrical trailer and a gallery of
promotional material and photographs. The DVD is also available in
a
box set encompassing the trilogy.
Awards
Zigeunerweisen received nine nominations at the 1981
Japanese Academy Awards
and won in four categories, Best Film, Suzuki won for Best
Director, Takeo Kimura for Best Art Director and Michiyo Okusu for
Best Supporting Actress. Also nominated were Naoko Otani for Best
Actress, Toshiya Fujita for Best Supporting Actor, Yōzō Tanaka for
Best Screenplay, Kazue Nagatsuka for Best Cinematography and Mitsuo
Onishi for Best Lighting.
At the Kinema Junpo Awards, it duplicated the same four wins plus a
fifth Best Actress award for Naoko Otani. At the
Yokohama Film Festival it won Best
Film, Director and Cinematographer. Further prizes include the
Blue Ribbon Awards (Best
Director), Hochi Film Awards (Special Award) and the
Mainichi Film Concurs (Best Screenplay
and Best Cinematographer). The film was also voted the best
Japanese film of the 1980s by Japanese film critics.
On the international front, the film won Honourable Mention at the
1981
Berlin
International Film Festival.
References
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