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Japan Prostitution Suicide

Double Suicide begins with a man fitting the head of a puppet onto its body. Several men fiddle with the puppets for a while then one of them receives a phone call from a man that's writing a script for them. While they discuss this, the camera moves about backstage and shows men setting up for a show while we listen to a strange, nearly noise-like soundtrack. As the phone call ends, the show begins.

Cut to a man walking on to a bridge then to many men dressed in white and carrying drums doing the same. Cut to the man on the bridge then tilt down to the riverbed below where the bodies of a man and woman lie near the water. After a pan across them, we tilt back up to our man on the bridge who looks a little upset. Cut to water and dissolve to a depressed looking man as he walks through a large hallway with many other people. Suddenly, everything around him freezes, but Jihei {Kichiemon Nakamura} continues on his way, past several nearly naked women and occasionally wandering towards the camera.

Jihei and a woman named Koharu {Shima Iwashita} argue about her redemption, their love and the fact that she's a courtesan. "Courtesan's can't fall in love" and this one wants to die because she has. After the conversation, they make love on a very large painting.

Cut to the hallway again then to Koharu as she arrives at a "party". She asks the madam to kindly whisper her name because Tahei {Hosei Komatsu}, the man she hates, is right outside. Tahei walks into the room anyway, exchanges pleasantries with Koharu and asks if Jihei has redeemed her yet. Tahei tells her that she's good enough for him and asks why she's so interested in a guy like Jihei. He continues to make fun of Jihei and his poor paper company, offers to buy Koharu and generally acts like a jerk.

When Koharu's customer shows up, he continues for a few minutes then decides to go to another "house". As he leaves, he comments to a shopkeeper that he's heard that a rich man will be redeeming Koharu. Jihei, who just happens to be passing by, overhears this and makes straightaway for the house where Koharu works. Once there, he watches the goings on and fantasizes about eloping with his beloved courtesan.

Koharu's samurai customer is insulted that she seems so sad. The madam explains the situation and adds a few comments about the rights of courtesans, Koharu expresses a desire to die and the customer makes an effort to cheer her up. Jihei over hears this and attempts to stab the man who disarms him and ties him to the wall of the building. Once Koharu and her customer have gone off to the sleeping chambers Tahei shows up again and makes fun of Jihei. The samurai takes pity on poor Jihei and slaps Tahei around for a few minutes. This seems to be the crowd's cue to chase Tahei out of town.

When the samurai takes off his hood, we discover that he's actually Jihei's brother Magoemon {Yusuke Takita}. Magoemon gives Jihei a hard time for messing around on his wife and tells him that her father is furious. Jihei admits that he's a fool, blames the whole thing on Koharu and there is much crying all around. After a bit of ranting the two men leave and a small group of puppeteers runs into the room and cleans up the mess.

Cut to the paper shop that Jihei runs with his wife Osan {Shima Iwashita}. Osan sets the table for her son and complains about stupid children, just before Kantaro runs into the room and announces that he's hungry. Jihei's aunt stops by with Magoemon and the both spend a great deal of time making Jihei's life miserable. Even one of the puppeteers that keeps appearing in the background every so often looks shocked by it. In the next few minutes we, as well as Jihei, will begin to realize just how large a mess he and Koharu have made of their lives. Then, they'll go on to make things much, much worse.

Much of this footage is made up of wonderful arrangements of lines and patterns in black and white. It's strange how these guys can get so much information on to the screen and make it work without seeming gaudy or overly busy. The sets and costumes are beautiful and the performances are powerful, though they are a bit "theatrical" as is nearly everything about this production. This is surprisingly good but you're going to have to be in a fairly receptive mood to really enjoy it unless you're fairly familiar with the black and white version of Japan back around the eighteenth century or so. It is definitely worth seeing if you're interested in design and composition.

Visually, this strikes me as what might happen if Resnais in his Hiroshima Mon Amour or Last Year at Marienbad phase were to do a film in Japan. This isn't quite as powerful as either of those films but it definitely does have a lot of that same artsy feel to it and it does come pretty darned close. The puppeteers are a perfect touch and the cinematography is just wonderful. The filmmakers have managed to build a very nifty and very surreal dream-like world and have done it very simply. The soundtrack is great, if a bit sparse and minimalistic. There is much crying but this is really beautiful.