Fighting Elegy (1966)

I don't know where Seijun Suzuki got his cracked outlook on life, but God bless him for it. Here, he takes a standard juvie-delinquent tale and throws everything in his stylistic-trick bag at it, and while the audience is dazzled by the pretty sights he subtly starts weaving a message into the film, so that the last shot carries with it the force of realization (so that's what he's getting at! wow!). And every time you think he's emptied his tank, he tops himself. (I especially liked the random close-ups whenever someone pronounced the name of the town in the scene where Kiroku is being oriented at his new school.) I think I prefer Suzuki's black-and-white films -- he can be too overwhelming in color, not to mention overwhelmed -- and this is the best of his I've yet seen. You can't miss it.

Grade: A