Suzuki Seijun 100
- A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness
- 悲愁物語
- Japan1977
- Suzuki Seijun
- 93 35mm
- NR
- Suzuki Seijun 100
Screening Dates
- September 1, 2023 6:30
“[A] little-known masterpiece … One of Suzuki’s most successful fusions of his chaotic style with a script that supports those visual ambitions.”
Marc Walkow, Film Comment
Listed on Kinema Junpo’s “Best Films of 1977,” A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness was Suzuki’s first feature after his dismissal by Nikkatsu, but it was released before his emergence as an international art house filmmaker in the 1980s. Pointedly critical of the homogenizing effects of television and consumerist, bourgeois, suburban existence, the film focuses on Reiko, a pretty, young golfer who is selected by textile executives to be the new face of their brand. Reiko manages the grueling schedule of training and modeling required by the contract, but her success and popularity leave her dangerously vulnerable to an unhinged fan. —William Carroll
In Japanese with English subtitles
“Begins as a slow-burn social satire [but] morphs into a gonzo Suzuki affair, replete with bold and lurid pseudo-Technicolor hues, oblique angles, and a barrage of style that heightens the film’s increasingly unruly and intoxicating pitch.”
Andréa Picard, TIFF
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