1963: Youth of the Beast

Youth of the Beast (1963, Suzuki) 7/10

A gay Yakuza driving under pink cherry blossom trees? A desert sandstorm on the outskirts of Tokyo? A hallucinatory figure gliding in mid-air? The Takeshita School of Knitting?

None of this is explicitly explained, nor does it firmly fuse together in Seijun Suzuki's 1964 pop-art-jazz gangster flick Youth of the Beast: a film dedicated more to the unconventionalities of the image, rather than the absurdities within a loosely conventional plot. What does it all signify in the grand scheme of things? Little. And how and why does it all come together? Only Suzuki knows. Youth of the Beast is a synthesis of multiple conflicting genres and styles mixed together in a concotion that is focused more on external aesthetics than on the internal dynamics of the script. Within the film's 91 minute running time there are conjoined elements as frayed and disconnected as the American Western, Yojimbo, Film Noir, Warner gangster flicks, Ozu, Fuller, Melville, Welles and Godard all thrown into a film that manages to elucidate little other than Suzuki's expansive cinematic tastes.

The film tells the story of Jo Mizuno (Jo Shishido) a disgraced ex-cop seeking revenge on the individual who murdered his former colleague in a supposed double suicide. Subsequently, Mizuno joins two rival Yakuza gangs and plays them off one another, whilst striving to find out who killed his deceased friend. The actual plot itself is of little importance, as Suzuki never really adheres to it: drifting in and out its fixed consciousness in order to explore the power of the image. This lack of streamlined purpose tends to result in a fluctuating storyline that plays like a film fast-forwarded through all the slow parts, with both positive and negative results. The positive is that the film runs at a breakneck pace that never lets up; the downside is that the plot is disconnected from the imagery. It is a film, which only seems to make sense in terms of a story, if one "goes with the flow," rather than the plot.

Like Antonioni's L'Avventura, the configuration of the composition tells the story, rather than the script. The two rival Yakuza's dress in the manner of professional accountants and businessmen, yet in actuality they act like negligent amateurs whose business model is built on an increasing scale of violent destruction. Each are a persona of fantasy: a decadent image of a cinematic version of a Yakuza. Their respectable businesses also demonstrate this pattern: owns a nightclub; the other is in the film business. They sit around in their plain offices without any real sign of purpose or direction. It is only when Mizuno enters the frame that their private undercurrents become public. They act simply on short-term emotion and their obsessions, rather than a calculated long-term plan: the most evident of which is the gay Yakuza Hideo who slashes the face of anybody who reminds him that he is "a son of a whore."

The obsessions become even more opposed as Yakuzas within the Nomoto clan particpate in such metaphorically intriguing comfort activities ranging from stroking cats to stroking guns.There is an internal lust for sadism, which is primarily taken out on women such as the heroin addict who crawls along the floor for another score, or the mistress who gets whipped by a jealous Yakuza who then fondles her amidst a sandstorm. Yet, the women in the film are just as conniving, utilizing blackmail and their own methods of revenge to balance out the equilibrium of the Yakuza underworld.

The film strings this concept of revenge, obsession and the gangster lifestyle are seen through its lively imagery:

- Mizuno wiping his blood-stained shoes on the clean shirt of an attacker
- A cat-obssessed Yakuza cleaning his blade on his favourite cat
- The pink-feather clad dancer who appears in the blackness of the night club
- The rival gangs fighting in their plush automobiles in a scene reminiscent of a Western gunfight
- The heroin addict ripping the lining out a chair for the next score
- The ritualistic eradication of limbs and body parts to satisfy old scores or to fulfill old habits

The film's architecture demonstrates both the decadence of this lifestyle, but also its debasement. For each scene in a palatial house or exotic club, there are also the blown-out houses similar to Suzuki's later Gate of Flesh and the windswept topography of L'Avventura. Like in the former the film's eroticism is charged with an element of sadistic glory and a desire to keep all the elemental figures within their natural social rank.

On more than one occasion Youth of the Beast is an irrational mess as a result of its abridged plot that seems destined to have been for an empty melodramatic crime film that has been razed down by Suzuki for maximum action. Instead, Suzuki uses the silent film approach of letting the images do the talking, which results in the loud vivid set-pieces and elaborate Technicolor images on display. The end-product is a film that is a highly entertaining feast of cinematic delights that is as memorable for its images as it is forgettable for its storyline. The pace is quick, the action loud and the acting taut.

Like Fuller's Naked Kiss it is a discombobulated fusion of several ideas, although this film comes out slightly better than the latter. There is a slight touch of organization here that keeps the picture together and prevents it from becoming an absolute wreck .There are better films than this by Suzuki, but there is perhaps none so memorable for accomplishing so much externally with so little internally.

* Youth Of The Beast is available through Criterion

Other Seijun Suzuki Films Reviewed:
Story of a Prostitute (1965) 8/10

Copyright 2006 8 ½ Cinematheque.