Synopsis
A surreal period film following a university professor and his eerie nomad friend as they go through loose romantic triangles and face death in peculiar ways.
Zigeunerweisen
Cast
Toshiya Fujita Naoko Ohtani Yoshio Harada Michiyo Yasuda Kisako Makishi Yuki Furutachi Kirin Kiki Akaji Maro Sumie Sasaki Isao Tamagawa Hatsuo Yamaya Rubi Enoshima Shiro Yumemura Hikaru Benisawa Tadaomi Watanabe Yuki Kimura Nagamasa Tamaki Yuki Yonekura Takashi Aida Yoshitomo Oda Seiroku Nakazawa Nobuko Uchiyama Taeko Hori Masami Ishii Ryôko Kawahira Hisato Aikura
Director
Producer
Writer
Original Writer
Editor
Cinematography
Assistant Directors
Executive Producer
Lighting
Additional Photography
Art Direction
Set Decoration
Composer
Sound
Costume Design
Makeup
Hairstyling
Studios
Country
Language
Alternative Titles
Tsigoineruwaizen, Цыганские напевы, 찌고이네르바이젠, 지고이네르바이젠, Melodie zigane, ツィゴイネルワイゼン, 流浪者之歌, Mélodie tzigane, Цыганские мотивы, Τσιγγάνικη μελωδία
Releases by Date
Premiere
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Greece
Thessaloniki International Film Festival
Theatrical limited
23 May 2010
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Russian Federation
Theatrical
01 Apr 1980
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Japan
Physical
21 Dec 2011
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Japan
15 Jun 2017
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UK15
04 Jul 2017
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USA
01 Dec 2020
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FranceTP
16 Feb 2021
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France
Releases by Country
France
01 Dec 2020
- PhysicalTP Blu-ray
16 Feb 2021
- Physical
Greece
23 Nov 2005
- Premiere Thessaloniki International Film Festival
Japan
01 Apr 1980
- Theatrical
21 Dec 2011
- Physical Blu-ray
Russian Federation
23 May 2010
- Theatrical limited Seijun Suzuki mini-retrospective
UK
15 Jun 2017
- Physical15 Blu-ray
USA
04 Jul 2017
- Physical DVD & Blu-ray
Popular reviews
More-
Action! - The Way of the Yakuza: Suzuki's Irreverent, Jarring and Illogical Brand
Seijun Suzuki delves deeper into the psychological, combining it with ghost stories and historical plays to create a series of surrealist films in which fantasy and reality constantly collide. The cinematography is fantastic, continuing with the same aesthetic he has been developing for a few films now, full of great production design, stunning cinematography, and some really odd and slightly humorous performances that capture the tone of the film very well.
If I had any criticism, it would be that the storytelling was difficult for me to enjoy as it seemed disjointed and convoluted, or so it appeared to me given that I find it difficult to…
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The wild, irreverent, and indisputably cool career that Seijun Suzuki had during his time at the Nikkatsu company was a time where an artist flourished into his own, and also a time of great controversy between him and the studio he had provided 40 B-movies to in ten years. One of these days I'll cover that story, but for now I'm dealing with Suzuki that, in the wake of just recovering from being blacklisted for ten years and becoming incredibly unpopular with studios, took a dramatic step away from his yakuza and unruly youth pictures in favor of what's been referred to as his "Taisho Trilogy", three films set in the brief era of representative democracy and a thriving arts…
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Suzuki finds the improbable missing link between A Touch of Zen and Hong Sang-soo.
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A ghost story wherein the dead hang above the void and those still living do so as empty shells, seeking answers, attempting to decipher words that were never meant to be heard, barely alive, on the verge of spoiling; and at this precipice is when the spirit is at its most ripe, choicest time to be consumed. Beneath our exteriors we’re all indistinguishable, carried by the same white set of beautiful bones. Dreams and heaven and hell and earth are just spiritual degrees, planes from under, over, inside, and out of the palatial frame of existence. What is unknown to you can never be unraveled.
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Against sense
"Zigeunerweisen," in addition to being the title of the first film in Seijun Suzuki's Taisho Trilogy, is also the name of a musical composition (lit. "Gypsy Airs"). Zigeunerweisen the song, perhaps unsurprisingly, features prominently in Zigeunerweisen the film. Professor Aochi and his former colleague Nakasago listen to a recording of the composition and discuss an inaudible stray voice on the record, something separate from the music but nonetheless recorded with it, perhaps the conductor or one of the performers or a random bystander. The movie even opens direction into this discussion, foregrounding this bit of no hay banda / this is all a tape-recording as a central thematic concern. It is all an illusion.
This voice on the…
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Robert Beksinski's #1 Film Selection for Edgar
The first of Suzuki's Taishō Period (1912-1926) Trilogy, Zigeunerweisen flows like a river of blood, calmly but disturbing at the same time. A psychological surreal, dark story full of allusions to ghosts both alive and dead with brief instances of kaleidoscopic horror and madness mainly mystifying death and other condemnable perversions, Suzuki's new branch of poetic experimentation is one strong psychological examination of marital relationships and extramarital affairs while discussing, by segments, transcendent terms such as life, mortality and Sarasate's violin composition. Haunting and spiritually arresting with an unforgettable closure, Zigeunerweisen marks the director's trajectory towards more kaleidoscopic, metaphysical reflections through a style completely new to Suzuki followers but incredibly rewarding when read between lines.
82/100
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"I had the dream first, but then you stole it."
The plot to the first entry in Seijun Suzuki’s Taisho Trilogy feels like that of an indecipherable snatch of dialogue inadvertently captured between verses on a scratchy recording. Neither it or the characters are that important -- it's only really there to impart a framework for Suzuki to explore what's in that gap between chorus and verse.
I'm really only familiar with Suzuki's Nikkatsu work, so it was surprising to see something as long and dense as this. There are through-lines to those earlier films, though, as the heavy s/m themes of Branded to Kill reappear in a few sequences of fetish-heavy eroticism. Though this isn't as kinetic and offbeat, it's…
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"Things are best when they begin to rot"
"Skeletons. They're the best"
Aochi (Fujita Toshiya) and Nakasono (Yoshio Harada) find themselves in a bizarre love triangle with Koine (Naoko Otani) (despite the fact that Aochi is married and wants to remain faithful) that spans years.
Suzuke's Zigeunerweisen is very much a departure from the gangster genre films
most western viewers (including myself) are familiar with from him. The surrealist elements are haunting and lend the narrative an ethereal, elusive quality that is easy to get lost in. From the troupe of three blind performers singing ribald sex songs to the sheer amount of eating in the film, there's a definite emphasis on surrendering to decadent urges and indulging in a… -
Something looked at askance these days, an actually mysterious film. Self and nation are stretched across imponderables: the internalized rhythms and fumbled communications of male friendship across years, symbiotic ethical decay, and slippages of identity across the porous boundaries of personality. The Vertigo doubling reverses on the male protagonists: both professors of foreign language and culture at a military academy, simpering (Aoichi) and marauding (Nakasago), their acts connect in a circle of complicity (between the educated and the violent man) and mirroring (cheating with each other's wives). Is Nakasago Aoichi's skeleton? The reverse?
Meaning dissolves at the edge of poetic images, textures, sonic motifs. The posed and polite remove is continually upset by the immediateness of sensation. A peach is…
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It could have used more flying crabs out of vaginas and more songs from a blind woman in a barrel but I suppose we all can't be kings.
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The Lovely Bones
Somewhat inscrutable... like an accidental bit of background speech recorded during a music performance, or a ghostly voice, or academic books on philosophy in a foreign language, or a dream, or... well, it's intentionally mysterious. Wonderful atmosphere, some images I won't soon forget, great gallows humor, but just too slippery to wrap my arms around and hold tight for the full 2 1/2 hours.
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There aren't many filmmakers who strike you with the sense of wildness quite like Seijun Suzuki does, but it's crazy to think that following Branded to Kill he would end up being fired by Nikkatsu for being too wild. It only fits to imagine that Seijun Suzuki would start up the Taisho trilogy just as one could imagine a Suzuki film could ever look. Zigeunerweisen is a gorgeous work, but one that nevertheless still feels relentless in every way that any of Seijun Suzuki's past films have done - but it's also very meditative, as he finds that perfect balance within styles.
I think that's also what makes Zigeunerweisen more disturbing underneath. It's the product of a collected anger, finding its way of unleashing - and then it just feels so uncompromised.
