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Beefy and fluttery in geisha getup, Kazuo Hasegawa supplies a deadpan center, though Kon Ichikawa has other plates spinning: Cymbeline, Yoshitoshi scrims, Yojimbo in drag. In the farce of schisms, the rectangular proscenium is flaunted only to be occupied with cinematic flurries. The leading female impersonator in 19th-century Edo, mid-performance he spots the merchant (Ganjiro Nakamura) responsible for his parents' deaths and superimposed iris-balloons fill the screen. Miming maidenly modesty on and off the stage, the vengeful thespian minces his way into the foe's lair, where his business partner (Eijiro Yanagi) and daughter (Ayako Wakao) are beguiled. A salty, "man-hating" pickpocket (Fujiko Yamamoto) bobs in and out of the action, the camera cranes away from a romantic encounter in the garden to find Kasegawa on the rooftop, doubling as an impish thief and commenting on his own theatricality. "That's an actor for you. He knew just how to end that scene." A visual slash every minute—red tatami mats are photographed at high, odd angles and rhymed later with a ruby pushed across the frame in a foreshortened diagonal. Chambers are lit golden like pavilions, a meeting at night is encircled by gaunt trees and a crooked sliver of a blue horizon, stage directions ("Fifteen minutes to curtains") seem to cue a swordfight outside (blades flashing in the dark). Once masculinity and femininity are revealed to be mere role-playing, all other absolutes turn to liquid: East and West, theater and cinema, long takes and frenzied editing, traditional Japanese ballads and jazzy trumpets. "Oh, this is the part where it's supposed to get good!" Nothing else like it, except Lewis' The Big Mouth. With Eiji Funakoshi, Narutoshi Hayashi, Chusha Ichikawa, Jun Hamamura, and Shintaro Katsu.
--- Fernando F. Croce |