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All painter Yumeji (Kenji Sawada) wants to do is to elope with Hikono
(Masumi Miyazaki), but when she's detained for some reason, he stumbles
across Tomoyo (Tomoko Mariya) and starts an affair with her. Tomoyo's
husband Wakiya (Yoshio Harada) was only recently killed by Matsu (Kazuhiko
Hasegawa), who found him in bed with his girlfriend ... or so everyone
thinks, it is a fact that Wakiya's body was never found and he might very
well still be alive. This is a problem not only because Yumeji is bedding
his wife, but also because years ago, Wakiya has dueled Yumeji to restore
the honour of his wife, a duel that has never been finished - and since,
Wakiya owes Yumeji a bullet, so to speak. Eventually, Yumeji stumbles
across Wakiya as well, who's of course still alive but doesn't want his
wife to find out. Fortunately for Yumeji, his favourite model Oyo (Reona
Hirota) shows up, and she can dissuade Wakiya from killing Yumeji, at
least for the moment. Eventually, Wakiya returns to Tomoyo, but she can
no longer accept that he's alive and throws him out, so he moves to his
summer residence, where by pure chance Hikono drops by, whom Wakiya beds
to get back at Yumeji. Eventually, killer Matsu shows up with the sole
intention of killing Wakiya, but when he manages to only injure him in an
attempt, he decides to commit suicide to not endanger any more lives -
much to the horror of Yumeji, who thought Matsu killing Wakiya could get
him out of that long-delayed duel ... plus, Matsu wants Yumeji to help him
hang himself. After Matsu's death, Tomoyo asks Yumeji to run away with
her - but the experience has made him nsane ... A film based on
the life of real-life painter Takehisa Yumeji, this is less of a biopic in
any sense of the word, but more of a trip-like experience, incorporating
many of the painter's painting into the story in a very unintrusive way.
Above all though, this is less a film about Yumeji and more a film by
director Seijun Suzuki, who continues on the path he started with Zigeunerweisen
and Kagero-za, making
labyrinthine films that follow the logic of nightmares and make little
sense objectively speaking but perfectly fall together in their own
context. In other words, this is one fascinating movie.
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