With highly stylized, indisputably unique art-house films like Masahiro Shinoda's Double Suicide, it's always a challenge to describe these works because there's just so much to say. This movie is considered to be one of the most notable films from the Japanese New Wave, aka the "movement that never officially existed but let's just call it a movement" movement, which is nevertheless one of the most thematically and artistically fascinating movie periods.
Double Suicide is based upon the 1721 play The Love Suicides at Amijima by Monzaemon Chikamatsu, which touches on one of Chikamatsu's apparently recurring themes, love and individuality getting royally owned by the system. This play is often performed in bunraku (puppet theatre) style, while Shinoda's film mixes avantgarde techniques with bunraku and kabuki theatre styles. The sets are strange and not at all realistic; huge white floors with doodles and letters/kanji characters written all over them, revolving background walls, characters getting lost in the indoor decor with giant traditional drawings all over the walls and floors, and so on. Sometimes, the footage goes into slow-motion or the camera just freezes on a single frame for a dramatic effect. Some half-second long establishing shots are repeated. The backdrops change their appearance as the film progresses. For example, the calligraphic texts on the walls of the protagonist's shop become amorphous ink blobs dripping down.
Kichiemon Nakamura and Shima Iwashita (who plays both main female characters), as well as the other actors, do a great job in their extremely theatrical and melodramatic roles, fitting in with the rest of the kabuki charm this movie has going for it. Before the three-act storyline begins, we have the opening credits scene which shows the puppets for the play being prepared (before getting substituted by real- life actors), while we listen to a phone conversation between Masahiro Shinoda and Taeko Tomioka (a co-writer), where they discuss the script as well as location hunting for the penultimate scene.
Another notable factor is the use of the kuroko (black-clad stagehands), a Japanese theatrical tradition. The kuroko intervene in nearly every scene, but they never come across as a gimmick. Sometimes they fit in so naturally that you forget they're even there until they move. They assist the actors in handling objects, they prepare the stage and the backgrounds, but never literally interfere with the storyline; after all, they're just spectators, such as ourselves the audience. One scene in particular I find to be amusing - after a character receives a letter, a kuroko takes it and brings it closer to the camera so the viewer can read it, while the two actors in the background freeze and stay still until the kuroko returns the letter to one of them. Now they can finally snap out and resume the dialogue.
The final 10 minutes are pure genius. The much-awaited suicide scene (it's not even a spoiler because the title and the intro make it obvious) has gorgeous photography all around. Just the shot of the kuroko standing at the far end of the bridge while the lovers are positioned in the middle is one of the most astonishing and memorable film shots I've ever seen. It all culminates in the incredibly shot hanging scene (the kuroko, of course, are there to prepare the noose), accompanied by Toru Takemitsu's fantastic score (he also co-wrote the film), before settling down to the shot of two corpses laying on the ground which closes the movie suddenly, without any ending screen or anything (or is my version of the film defective?)
Double Suicide is one of the best Japanese New Wave films I've seen and the proof that a creative filming style can single-handedly salvage a plot that in itself is not that interesting.
Double Suicide is based upon the 1721 play The Love Suicides at Amijima by Monzaemon Chikamatsu, which touches on one of Chikamatsu's apparently recurring themes, love and individuality getting royally owned by the system. This play is often performed in bunraku (puppet theatre) style, while Shinoda's film mixes avantgarde techniques with bunraku and kabuki theatre styles. The sets are strange and not at all realistic; huge white floors with doodles and letters/kanji characters written all over them, revolving background walls, characters getting lost in the indoor decor with giant traditional drawings all over the walls and floors, and so on. Sometimes, the footage goes into slow-motion or the camera just freezes on a single frame for a dramatic effect. Some half-second long establishing shots are repeated. The backdrops change their appearance as the film progresses. For example, the calligraphic texts on the walls of the protagonist's shop become amorphous ink blobs dripping down.
Kichiemon Nakamura and Shima Iwashita (who plays both main female characters), as well as the other actors, do a great job in their extremely theatrical and melodramatic roles, fitting in with the rest of the kabuki charm this movie has going for it. Before the three-act storyline begins, we have the opening credits scene which shows the puppets for the play being prepared (before getting substituted by real- life actors), while we listen to a phone conversation between Masahiro Shinoda and Taeko Tomioka (a co-writer), where they discuss the script as well as location hunting for the penultimate scene.
Another notable factor is the use of the kuroko (black-clad stagehands), a Japanese theatrical tradition. The kuroko intervene in nearly every scene, but they never come across as a gimmick. Sometimes they fit in so naturally that you forget they're even there until they move. They assist the actors in handling objects, they prepare the stage and the backgrounds, but never literally interfere with the storyline; after all, they're just spectators, such as ourselves the audience. One scene in particular I find to be amusing - after a character receives a letter, a kuroko takes it and brings it closer to the camera so the viewer can read it, while the two actors in the background freeze and stay still until the kuroko returns the letter to one of them. Now they can finally snap out and resume the dialogue.
The final 10 minutes are pure genius. The much-awaited suicide scene (it's not even a spoiler because the title and the intro make it obvious) has gorgeous photography all around. Just the shot of the kuroko standing at the far end of the bridge while the lovers are positioned in the middle is one of the most astonishing and memorable film shots I've ever seen. It all culminates in the incredibly shot hanging scene (the kuroko, of course, are there to prepare the noose), accompanied by Toru Takemitsu's fantastic score (he also co-wrote the film), before settling down to the shot of two corpses laying on the ground which closes the movie suddenly, without any ending screen or anything (or is my version of the film defective?)
Double Suicide is one of the best Japanese New Wave films I've seen and the proof that a creative filming style can single-handedly salvage a plot that in itself is not that interesting.