Zigeunerweisen

Loosely adapted from the stories of Uchida Hyakken, Zigeunerweisen, in its simplest form, is a decade-spanning love triangle between two men, former university colleagues, and one woman, a geisha. Doppelgängers, illnesses and enigmas are not just complications, but the very fuel of the performances, which position each character as a ghost of desire for the other. The film unfolds like a play of memory, dream and narration, haunted by the war and its shattering epochal shift.

With Zigeunerweisen, Suzuki makes a radical departure from his more familiar stories of cops, gangsters and youthful mavericks to deliver an enigma both psychological and surreal, freezing on film the pandemonium of a bygone era of decadence and excess. A masterpiece.