GATE OF FLESH 1964
(Nikutai no mon)
Directed by Seijun Suzuki
90 minutes
In Japanese with English subtitles

About a month ago the great Japanese New Wave director Seijun Suzuki died. He had a long life of creating ground-breaking films, and when he refused to conform to the industry standards he was thrown out of the studio system. His movies are colorful, expressionistic, absurd, and have a beautiful sense of twisted dark humor. And his soundtracks are always lovely. Jim Jarmusch (among many others in both the east and west) is a big fan of Suzuki's fusion of style and passion.

This movie is set in post-war Japan, in an urban city decimated and struggling to survive. People are in poverty, there is starvation everywhere, and American soldiers have taken control of the country. The black market and criminality flourish. Within this tragic situation women are either prostitutes to American soldiers or are open game to be raped by them. So things are pretty clear: Suzuki takes sides with his own society and people, and not the occupiers. Gate of Flesh centers on a group of women living in a prostitution den, and their strange story which unfolds within the confines of history. This flick is one wild cinematic cocktail... the situations and environment are bleak, but the cinematography is ravishing and flamboyant. The storyline is also punctuated by a thunderous, crazed soundtrack of pounding drums and extravagant, almost avant-garde, rhythms. In other words, this movie is aesthetically exploding, while thematically it is utterly devastating.

This will be a tribute to the legendary director Seijun Suzuki.

Doors open at 20:30, film starts at 9
Entrance: free