Connor Jessup on Suzuki’s Atmospheric Ghost Story KAGERŌ-ZA | POP JAPAN | TIFF 2023

Connor Jessup speaks about Seijun Suzuki’s indie film era atmospheric ghost story Kagero-za. In this hallucinatory adaptation of a work by the Taishō-era writer Kyōka Izumi, a mysterious woman named Shinako invites Matsuzaki, a playwright, to the city of Kanazawa for a romantic rendezvous. While Matsuzaki is on his way, his patron Tamawaki appears on the train, claiming to be en route to witness a double suicide between a married woman and her lover. Matsuzaki suspects Shinako is Tamawaki’s wife, and the trip may spell his doom. As in Zigeunerweisen, the first film of the Taishō Roman trilogy, reality, fantasy, life, and afterlife blend together ― most spectacularly in the grand finale, in which Matsuzaki finds his life morphing into a deranged theatrical extravaganza. The POP Japan: Seijun Suzuki series is generously supported by the Japan Foundation, Toronto. 35mm prints of Suzuki Seijun’s films were imported and provided by the Film Library of the Japan Foundation’s h