Story of a Prostitute (1965, Seijun Suzuki) (Patreon)

47/100

Apparently a very popular Japanese love story—Kurosawa, early in his career, co-scripted another adaptation of the same novel—but it's predicated on a dynamic that I can never get past: The woman who perceives a man's physical abuse as evidence of his passion. While that's admittedly not dominant here, with Mikami mostly addicted to military subservience, we still get Harumi coming right out and saying "You taught me true happiness. I love you. When you hit me, in your angry eyes, I saw that. I am in love with you." And since they evince no other discernible chemistry, either romantic or erotic, that's all we're left with. Yumiko Nogawa gets more of a fiery showcase here than she did in the previous year's Gate of Flesh, but Suzuki ultimately seems more interested in conflicting questions of honor as they relate to the madness of war; there's almost a Catch-22 illogic regarding what a soldier who's been captured by the enemy should do upon escaping. That dovetails with Harumi's obsession only in the most superficial way, though, by forcing her into rather-die-than oblivion. For me, Story of a Dude We Call Them Sex Workers Now served primarily as further evidence that a filmmaker I associate with striking use of color was equally adept working in anamorphic monochrome, though Suzuki's generally on his "best behavior" here, meaning that eye-searing images are comparatively scarce. A shot of Harumi sprinting across the battlefield, looking for Mikami, as mortar blasts explode around her is more spectacular than most of 1917's big climactic setpiece, and there's the occasional offbeat flourish à la freezing the frame and then eviscerating one character into multiple jagged pieces (it's like a Python-era Gilliam animation), but the body of the film's respectfully sedate. Which would have been fine had I cared about its doomed lovers, but alas, I did not.