12/10/2008

Sooner or Later, Zigeunerweisen, Kageroza, Yumeji, & Underworld Beauty

Sooner or Later is an 11 minute short Hungarian film written and directed by István Madarász (and is Elöbb-utóbb in Hungarian). Normally I wouldn't bother watching random short films online, but io9 and Metafilter both linked to it, so go here and watch a short about a late-war secret Nazi experiment to use a time travel serum to go back to win the war. Worth 11 minutes.

Zigeunerweisen, Kageroza, and Yumeji are an informal trilogy of Seijun Suzuki films, and are bizarre and very nonsensical with ghosts and actors playing different people. Sorry, just didn't like them at all. They're basically his only major works from Branded To Kill to Pistol Opera. He clearly was still messing with people, but instead of it being the studio heads like in Tokyo Drifter and Branded To Kill, it is the audience. Underworld Beauty, on the other hand, is a quick little dirty, early Seijun Suzuki film, not as good as his later ones, but it's effective at what it does: a bunch of criminals are chasing after some diamonds. There's a tense scene involving a coal chute, and a lot of naked mannequins, but really, it's just a fun little film. Nothing remotely that interesting except for those who will see anything by a director of which they are a fan.

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