Fighting Elegy

Set in the 1930s, this darkly comic film is the story of Kiroku, a high-school student who lusts after the pure, Catholic daughter of the family with whom he boards. The only relief he can find for his immense sexual frustration is through fighting, which at first gets him into trouble, but later makes him perfect cannon fodder for the Sino-Japanese War. As with Story of a Prostitute, the subject of militarism inspired Suzuki to make a highly personal and impassioned work. “One of Suzuki’s indisputable masterpieces, this subversively funny account of the making of a model fascist goes where no film had gone before in search of comic insights into the adolescent male mind” (Tony Rayns). Print courtesy of the Japan Foundation.