Excellent but underrated film

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Okay, so Seijun Suzuki's movie "Fighting Elegy" has a little bit more to it than that--as Suzuki movies are wont to do, post-modernly. But as a film-goer who delights in the good, the bad, AND the ugly coming out of Japan while the majority of Italian film leaves him cold (except Antonioni, who is a personal god), some of the more Italian-influenced scenes in this movie sent me into near hysterics. You know, it's not often movies make me laugh as much as this one did.Satire is the intention in this one, and it most primarily reminds me of "Amarcord"--only, you know, without the navel-gazing. Suzuki drops Fellini's typical approach to the Carnivalesque and replaces it with gorgeous, luminous black-and-white imagery. It also reminds me of a Godard film, in terms of editing style--only, you know, without the navel-gazing. Often movies seem like they must have been fun to be in, or they look like they were fun to make, but this one looks like it was a lot of fun to edit. Pretty much nothing editing-wise is held sacred as Suzuki plays around with split frames, sudden extreme closeups, and yes, jump cuts.But what it's all about? Young, Catholic Kiroku is in love with his flat-mate Michiko; so much so, in fact, that he finds himself having to get into fights in order to get his passion and sexual frustration out (masturbation isn't allowed 'cause the Lord disapproves--setting the scene for one of the most hilarious moments of fetishism in screen history). He joins a ridiculously-dressed gang in order to regularly be involved in fights, and their rules and edicts both keep him separated from Michiko as well as eventually kicked out of school. He moves to the Aizu on the countryside, where he immediately gets into more fights and eventually starts an epic gang battle that lasts an entire night. Victorious, there's practically nothing left to do but join Japan's pre-WWII army, gearing up for the Imperialism the world is very familiar with.That's all morbid and stuff, but the tone is pitch-perfect for Suzuki's satirical implications. Kiroku's blind passion is used to make fun of anything from duck-walking and melodramatic teenage drama to general male machismo and the undertones of male impotency. The intense imagery fits Kiroku's proto-fascist male Romanticism to a cue, and ultimately his relationship to Michiko becomes the best tongue-in-cheek nod to teenage stupidity since Romeo and Juliet.Meanwhile, I stress the Italian influence. Italian music, the jabs at Catholicism, and a particularly familiar scene by the sea-shore back up this theme while the general story involves the idea of fascism in the particularly Italian sense, that of basically roving gangs of bullies looking to the extremes of the law to cover their dissatisfaction, leading to the belief of violence as the ultimate social right. This contrasts with the more clichéd view of pre-war Japanese Imperialism where the soldiers are most often shown as devoted machine-like automatons for the state juggernaut, as opposed to overly hormonal teens.Anyway, I've seen some great Suzuki films, but this has instantly become by far my favorite one. It's also one the best Japanese comedies I've seen so far--nay, one of the best comedies no matter the country of origin. Highly recommended for some body laughs, and your eyes will love the scenery, too.--PolarisDiB

I've always found middle-aged students in motion pictures more than a little humorous in and of themselves (see THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE), but FIGHTING ELEGY, with its rousing opening score and its socialpaths in (goose-)step with the times, manages to rumble right past that little incongruity like a locomotive through a long, dark tunnel. There's plenty of ear-gnawing action, here, as our hot-blooded hero channels his sexual frustration(s) into brawl after brawl in an attempt to become "a man's man." (And I'm not going to touch that one with a ten-foot pole...) After all, he is told, "One must be a man above all." Even if it means playing a piano without his hands... Some of the almost 3D-looking effects were ahead of their time; certainly I don't recall seeing shots like this in a movie that wasn't 3D. One can almost hear the announcer's voice, all aquiver with repressed passion, when the trailer for this one first ran: "See hot-blooded youth EXPLODE across the screen!" Whew. Think I need a shower.

* minor spoilers * Fighting Elegy is the crowning feature of a 6 DVD package of Suzuki's work (also featuring the wacky Tokyo Drifter and similar gems), released in 2003 in France (region 2, French subtitles only). Wonderfully shot in black and white, with a swiftness and a brutality one finds more and more disturbing as the (very grim) end nears... It indeed reminded me of Ferdydurke (the book, not the film, which was rather a disappointment), with its mixture of male hysteria, repressed sexuality and elegance. (And it is an additional pleasure to think that Suzuki Seijun is still around !)

Even though it suffers from acute VBS (Vinnie Barbarino Syndrome, i.e. all the "schoolchildren" are Thirtyish), this tale of burgeoning adolescent sexuality and burgeoning adolescent aggression is both funny and powerful. Directed by Suzuki Seijun [Tokyo Drifter, Branded to Kill] and scripted by Shindo Kaneto [who was in turn the director of Onibaba], Elegy to Violence has a lot more to say about conformity and militarism than allegedly profound films like Teshigihara's Face of Another.As the young lad torn between swooning adoration for his Catholic girlfriend and the sense of power and purity he finds in paramilitary gangs, Hideki Takahashi overplays marvelously. He is an encyclopedia of twitches and cringing at first, but that gradually gives way to ridiculous hypermachismo as he gets into more and more fights. (or, as the subtitles put it, "scuffles")Seijun Suzuki shows that he is keenly aware of the absurdity that underlies all of that hyperbolically heroic bloodshed that makes his other films so sublime.But those of you just looking for your fix of hip 60s cinema won't be disappointed--with cartoonish sound effects, brutal action, stoned continuity, split screens, sudden fits of slapstick worthy of The Knack or Help!, and immortal lines like "Your manhood will cry if you are afraid" and "Oh Michiko, I do not masturbate--I FIGHT!", how can you go wrong?Watch for the scene in which Our Hero climbs a watch tower to witness a "scuffle" that he himself fomented--an explicit homage to Yojimbo.