梦二

夕阳下 吊钟花哼唱的歌， 乘着轻风飘过来 很是无奈。 等待啊 一心地等待 那人不再来。 盼夜幕的宵待草 不安地等待， 不要想 我不愿再想 不由地泪洒两腮， 今晚的月亮 似乎也不愿出来。

竹久梦二

为什么非得140

我好愁啊

我就不要有益

怎么这样

哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼哼

一部成熟得不成熟电影，一场超越现实的梦幻联动，一段没有时空的间歇体验，一位有名的无名之辈，一部有情的无情之诗，一场有尽头的无尽之宴。

全片都围绕着梦二与生命中女性的关系展开，可以说女性即是他生命的灵魂也是他对于艺术追求的媒介。

一开始的梦中场景就揭示了他最初的愿望：看清梦中神秘女孩的脸。此时有个白毛男点醒挖苦并威胁了他，他也恨不得杀了白毛男，白毛男却没有死，对他说你我时候未到。可以看出白毛即是他的心魔化身，而神秘女是他的初心本愿，二者本身矛盾，在后面会经常出现（有没有觉得那个布偶娃娃长的很像白毛？）。

片中有3位跟梦二有直接关系的女人，而现实中的梦二结了3次婚。

片中的梦二有4个差异变化的心理时期，而不同的时期配以不同的女性陪伴：刚开始时对于性的渴望和浪荡女间的嬉戏，只让梦二感到无趣（浪荡女那做作的呻吟和木偶般的表情）。其后是梦二的初恋女友，因为梦二为了追求理想（口中的金泽便是一个表象）不得不放弃，但初恋一直对其不离不弃（俗世中的白月光）。然后是与经常接待自己的旅店老板娘闲聊（可能是代表自我意识中的自我表达，所以老板娘与自己没有密切关系，却相互理解相互关怀？）时期，可以看到梦二经常表达自我内心的想法（时而悠然时而苦恼时而崩溃，这都不像一个正常人会对外表达的常态，除非是在内心）。然后是与追随自己的爱好玩乐的少女（梦二第2任妻子英年早逝年方24，而这位少女一副游玩心态却对梦二死心塌地，但她大部分却只能在白毛身边且处处担心梦二，是否有所指？），梦二与她在一起时才能悠然玩乐也只能玩乐。然后是真正促进了梦二艺术表达的鸟居夫人，时而让梦二感到疼苦和迷惑的女人，最后虽然没有让梦二追求到艺术真谛却被梦二当作画布赠送了一幅画在身上，代表了梦二平生的艺术成就。

最后的梦二再也没有女性陪伴，只身处于芦苇丛中凌乱于风，代表了理想与现实的不可得和无尽头。

可以说理想在梦二心中化身成了女性的形象，让他魂牵梦绕日夜求索。但每找到一位女性梦二都会失望一次：因为接触了就会发现对方不过是个人而不是神，会看到对方身上俗尘的一面。男人与女性的关系即是相互的又是相对的，他生命中的女性都在渴求他的肉体而他渴求的是她们的精神，但精神是无法凝固的，他只能不停的寻找，最终成为无根之草（可笑的是，世人往往认为是男性喜爱肉体而女性注重精神，但现实常恰恰相反）。而那些女性与他的纠葛也只会在得失与爱恨之间摇摆，让他日益分裂（每一个梦二遇到的女性都想着占有并与他私奔，而梦二却只想着自己心中的完美女神）。

值得一提的还有个人：已知玩乐少女与梦二和白毛的关系很好得出，梦二与白毛是同一个人。后面出现一个眼镜男，却将少女迷得神魂颠倒，且眼镜男和梦二和白毛都很熟络，猜测三人应该是同一人在内心的不同体现（本我自我和超我？）。

白毛象征梦二内心的欲望只想寻欢问柳，所以死亡（乌鸦）会常常伴随着它。而眼镜男代表梦二内心的理性是个翩翩君子，所以他莫得感情只会让人敬而远之。而那个画画的梦二代表内心的纯洁整天不想啪啪就想着怎么画出梦中女神的脸。

鸟居夫人的丈夫（镰刀男）代表了俗尘男子（与老婆结婚那种）的下场，他手持镰刀穿着古朴，看见白毛就想砍，是一种世俗传统的象征。而镰刀男并不会对画家梦二下手且能与他把酒言欢，说明他清楚这个梦二只是个单纯的艺术追求者并不会打自己老婆主意。梦二却在镰刀男身上看到普通人的结局，造成了他对于世俗的恐惧心理（从电影一开始就看出了梦二对于死的恐惧，所以说一切对于梦想的追求都是对死亡的逃离），也造成他抛弃女性的根源。

本片通过魔幻现实主义的拍摄风格，展现了一位画家对于艺术追求的内心体现，可以说每一位艺术家都有这种对于理想和现实的疼苦，甚至说每一个男人都有的疼苦。

从男性诞生于世时，女性就注定成为他心中的羁绊，只是这份连结是伴随着矛盾的宿命永无尽头的。如果有，那就是死亡。

Seijun Suzuki’s The Taisho Trilogy marks the apex of his artistic idiom, a style that is totally detached from his previous works of B-quality yakuza quickies. The trilogy successfully reinstates Suzuki as a virtuoso filmmaker after he fell out with the studio and went independent.

All three films are set in the Taisho era (1912-1926), and their male protagonists are intellectuals, in ZIGEUNERWEISEN, Aochi (a hunched Fujita, a fellow movie director dips his toes into performing in front of the camera), a professor of German, is gravitated to his former colleague-turned-nomad Nakasago (Harada) and his unconventional relationship with women, which could imperil Aochi’s own passionless marriage; in KAGERO-ZA, a playwright named Shunko Matsuzaki (Matsuda) is involuntarily hooked up with the wife of his patron, but is she a ghost with a grudge? And YUMEJI is a faux-biography treatment of Yumeji Takehisa (1884-1932), a Japanese poet and painter, whose creativity and inspiration gets mired in his abandon of wine, women, and song.

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.

Conversely, the petticoat presentation goes to the mystical, women are insubordinate despite of ostensible submission. In ZIGEUNERWEISEN, Aochi’s anachronistically coiffured wife Shuko (Yasuda, who also play three prominent characters in the trilogy and each time, carries off a different facade of the inscrutability of femininity) is (possibly fantasticated as) a bold temptress, an eroticized and emasculating tease; in KAGERO-ZA, Shinako (Yasuda again, peculiarly prim-looking), the phantom-like entity seduces and mesmerizes Shunko, can not be pinned down with any concrete conclusion, like a banshee, she wails for destruction, but she will not go down that path all by herself; in YUMEJI, variety increases, Tomoyo (Mariya) is a widow who entices and bemuses Yumeji, Hikono (Miyazaki) is the girl who loves him unconditionally, Oyo (Hirota), a frisky fangirl, is good for a fling. Thus the question is, which one is the muse he looks for? None would be a surprising answer.

Suzuki’s stream of consciousness fluidity is so adroit in nailing the yawning gender divide, the mutual incomprehensibility between the two sexes, and his imagery, with the gradation from colorfully subdued to profusely garish (culminated in YUMEJI, an chromatic feast almost too ornate by half), is an astonishing achievement, consistently striking through the trilogy: red crabs out of a dead woman’s crotch, solarized effect, porcelain dolls with erotic drawing inside, particolored balloons, just to name a few off the top of my head. They are so felicitous to the background (whether natural or artificial) and idiosyncratically expressive, their lusciousness is nearly ASMR-inducing. Then, the impeccable compositions often articulated with languid movements (beware of off-the-wall mirror images!), the rich scores mingling together traditional ear candies, jazz-infused effusion (Shigeru Umebayashi’s prominent theme strain of YUMEJi would later be plundered by Wong Kar Wai in his seminal mood-setter IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, 2000) and the recurring Zigeunerweisen for sure, Suzuki’s avant-garde style is so profoundly rooted in the Japanese culture and mentality, yet, his conceit is transgressively modern, pace is deliberately slow, performances are highly theatrical while he flouts the boundary of storytelling.

The truth is, in all three films, the meandering plots never reach a point of clarity, they are dismembered along the line (all three features run over 2 hrs), yet, strangely enough, it is not exasperating, since it is Suzuki’s style of expression becomes the cynosure. Each time, audience are tickled to savor the transcendentally arranged scenery, rather than to decipher the signification of words or actions (which are sometimes contradictory and inconsistent). That said, if one watches all three in a row, it is liable to feel somewhat fatigued, since each film doesn’t possess enough personality to distinguish itself from the other two. Which explains why their ratings are descending, although KAGERO-ZA orchestrates a crucial Noh play to apparently explain the crux, how one can appreciate it varies differently.

By my lights, ZIGEUNERWEISEN is the best among the trinity, for being a more ludic and freewheeling vehicle that is almost unperturbed by affective force, and its psychic elements are more pellucid (a young daughter communicates with her dead father through dreams, versus the elusive suicidal pact in KAGERO-ZA), plus the inclusion of a triad of blind mendicant minstrels, chanting ribald ditties while the hierarchy of their sex preference goes through an irreverent modulation. And my final counsel is one picture at a time, The Taisho Trilogy is a rich mine where numen prevails and creativity brims.

referential entries: Suzuki’s PRINCESS RACOON (2005, 6.5/10); Kon Ichikawa’s THE MAKIOKA SISTERS (1983, 8.1/10).

Title: Zigeunerweisen

Original Title: Tsigoineruwaizen

Year: 1980

Country: Japan

Language: Japanese

Genre: Mystery

Director: Seijun Suzuki

Screenwriter: Yôzô Tanaka

based on the novel by Hyakken Uchida

Music: Kaname Karachi

Cinematography: Kazue Nagatsuka

Editing: Nobutake Kamiya

Cast:

Toshiya Fujita

Naoko Ôtani

Yoshio Harada

Michiyo Yasuda

Kisako Makishi

Akaji Maro

Kirin Kiki

Isao Tamagawa

Rating: 7.9/10

Title: Kagero-za

Year: 1981

Country: Japan

Language: Japanese

Genre: Fantasy, Thriller, Romance

Director: Seijun Suzuki

Screenwriter: Yôzô Tanaka

based on the novel by Kyoka Izumi

Music: Kaname Karachi

Cinematography: Kazue Nagatsuka

Editing: Akira Suzuki

Cast:

Yûsaku Matsuda

Michiyo Yasuda

Katsuo Nakamura

Mariko Kaga

Eriko Kusuda

Ryûtarô Ôtomo

Yoshio Harada

Emiko Azuma

Rating: 7.8/10

Title: Yumeji

Year: 1991

Country: Japan

Language: Japanese

Genre: Drama

Director: Seijun Suzuki

Screenwriter: Yôzô Tanaka

Music: Shigeru Umebayashi

Cinematography: Jun’ichi Fujisawa

Editing: Akira Suzuki

Cast:

Kenji Sawada

Tomoko Mariya

Yoshio Harada

Leona Hirota

Masumi Miyazaki

Kazuhiko Hasegawa

Michiyo Yasuda

Akaji Maro

Tamasaburô Bandô

Kimiko Yo

Chikako Miyagi

Rating: 7.6/10