Double Suicide

Double Suicide is Japanese director Masahiro Shinoda's cinematic adaptation of Shinju Ten no Amijima (Double Suicide at Amijima), Monzaemon Chikamatsu's legendary bunraku puppet play. The movie ranks as one of the most visually striking films ever produced. Shinoda employs a didactic style which grounds the movie in its bunraku roots by involving black-clad puppeteers in almost every scene. The puppeteers, or kurago, are actively involved in the story: assisting in the action, moving actors about the set, and guiding characters through the narrative. They act as a sort of liaison between audience and story, a metaphor for the boundary between fiction and reality. The film itself starts off with several kurago assembling a puppet stage, while one of them is on the telephone, ostensibly discussing the end of the film with perhaps one of the film's producers. But as the story begins, the puppets are indeed real actors, and the kurago pull their strings in an inimitable cinematic style.

This is quite a film, and the DVD has been distributed as part of the Criterion Collection. Criterion's disc boasts a fine transfer of the film, but there are no extras or supplementary material. Those who may want to discover further background material about the film, the director, or bunraku puppet plays will have to look elsewhere. However, if you are simply looking for a fine presentation of an excellent movie, you will definitely enjoy Double Suicide.

Look & Listen:

There is nothing quite like black-and-white to really enhance a film's otherworldliness, and Double Suicide is no exception. Criterion has created a new digital transfer from a 35mm composite fine-grain master, and the resulting video - presented in its original 1.33:1 full frame aspect ratio - is quite something to behold. Contrasts and brightness levels are about as perfect as they go. Instead of dull shades of gray, the video sports rich, deep blacks and almost blazingly pure whites. Shadow delineation boasts a notable level of detail, and the transfer is free from pixelation and other compression noise. The only noticeable drawbacks are some speckling and minor debris on the print. The video also seems mildly shaky; not distractingly so, but it was there nonetheless. This film is over thirty years old, so as much can be expected. Overall, I was more than pleased by the quality of the video; I was very impressed by it!

The audio is presented in Dolby Digital 1.0, and performs adequately for a monaural soundtrack. Dialog sounded clear and bright, with some very minor hiss at times but overall at a satisfactorily level. Toru Takemitsu's score sounded very lively without thinness or distortion. This is not an aggressive, immersive soundtrack, but it certainly does not need to be.

Extras & Highlights:

Other than an essay by Claire Johnston in the liner notes and color bars, there are no extras on this disc.

Menus & Interface:

The menus on this DVD are static. The Main Menu features a still shot of stars Kichiemon Nakamura and Shima Iwashita, their characters lying dead together. There is no video or audio accompaniment to any of the menus. The Scene Selections menu features a short caption for each of the DVD's eighteen chapters.

Storyline & Syllabus:

Jihei is a paper merchant with a wife and two children who also happens to be dabbling with a prostitute/courtesan named Koharu. He is obsessed with the woman, and cannot stop visiting her or thinking about her. His wife Osan tries in vain to help him (and her) get on with their lives, but his obsession leads him to abandon his family and his fortune for Koharu. However, Jihei and Koharu realize that society will never allow them to be with each other. I won't say what happens next, but if you re-read the film's title you have a pretty good idea…

Cast & Crew:

Double Suicide is based on the bunraku puppet-play Shinju Ten no Amijama by Monzaemon Chikamatsu. Masahiro Shinoda directed the film and wrote the screenplay with Taeko Tomioka and Toru Takemitsu. The movie stars Kichiemon Nakamura, Sjima Iwashita in the dual roles of the courtesan Koharu and the wife Osan, Hosei Komatsu, Yusuke Takita, Kamatari Fujiwara, Yoshi Kato, Shizue Kawarazaki, and Tokie Hidari. Kiyoshi Awazu provided the art direction. Toru Takemitsu composed the score.

Conclusions & Afterthoughts:

It's almost somewhat degrading to praise a film's style over its substance, but Double Suicide is a masterpiece of presentation. Shinoda's film takes the milieu of the puppet stage and transforms it into a cinematic landscape in which the puppeteers interact directly with the actors. The movie does raise deeper questions about gender roles, the Madonna/whore complex (Iwashita does play both the devoted wife and the alluring courtesan), and the struggles between duty and eroticism as well as individual desires and societal norms. But it is the way in which the story is presented that makes Double Suicide such a compelling and fascinating piece of work.

Criterion's DVD release of the film will make the movie's fans quite happy - the quality of the transfer is extraordinary, especially considering the film's age. It's lack of supplemental material is unfortunate, but to have the film available at all - especially in such great condition - is certainly reason to celebrate. Foreign film fans and movie-lovers alike should give Double Suicide a spin!
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Many films have drawn from classic Japanese theatrical forms, but none with such shocking cinematic effect as director Masahiro Shinoda's Double Suicide. In this striking adaptation of a bunraku puppet play (featuring the music of famed composer Toru Takemitsu), a paper merchant sacrifices family, fortune, and ultimately life for his erotic obsession with a prostitute. Criterion is proud to present Double Suicide with a stunning digital transfer and a new and improved English subtitle tanslation.

If nothing else, the DVDs released in the Criterion Collection have helped broaden my cinematic horizons as they exposed me to works that were previously unknown to me. Sometimes this has been enjoyable and enlightening - as with Autumn Sonata and The Element of Crime - while sometimes I’ve been much less enchanted with the work in question. Plop 1969’s Double Suicide into that latter category, as it provided a dull and stilted experience.

I went into DS almost totally blind. All I knew about the film before I dropped it in my DVD player was that it was Japanese; otherwise all aspects of the movie were unknown to me.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that it was rather different. According to the DVD’s case, it’s an “adaptation of a bunraku puppet play”. If you crave additional explanation of the phrase “bunraku puppet play”, you’ll have to look elsewhere, because I don’t know anything about the subject. The essay included in the DVD’s booklet doesn’t shed much additional light; it indicates that the movie’s a “close adaptation of Chikamatsu’s 1720 doll-drama Shinju Ten no Amijima” and relates a few more details of how the film relates to that form of drama, but that’s about it.

From what I can gather, “bunraku” is essentially just a form of puppet show, but DS features live actors instead of dolls. Nonetheless, it seems to stage the production in a manner similar to the way things would work with the puppets; in fact, we see the “kurago” - black-clad performers who normally would manipulate the dolls - throughout the film.

The “staginess” of the production is one aspect of DS I disliked. It essentially did little more than film a play; though it goes outside the theater walls at times, and it seemed to take a few liberties that would be unlikely in a live performance, I felt as though the majority of the movie did little to rework the experience for the movies. (Um, other than the fact the actors weren’t puppets anymore, that is.)

DS tells the story of “courtesan” - prostitute, that is - Koharu (Shima Iwashita) and local merchant Jihei (Kichiemon Nakamura). Though Jihei’s married and has kids, he’s in love with Koharu, despite the fact she needs to be “redeemed” - bought, that is - and the two can never be together. Much hand-wringing ensues, and further complications evolve through the family issues caused by this romance, primarily as they involve Jihei’s wife Osan (also played by Shima Iwashita).

Frankly, I thought it was little more than a load of pretentious claptrap. The film makes a broad point about the suffocating nature of Japanese customs; the only option for this couple in love is to kill themselves. Unfortunately, it takes a loooong time to get there. The movie largely consists of exchanges that cover the hopelessness of everyone’s plight; there’s the couple who have other obligations, and the wife who is unloved, and so on. It never really seems to go anywhere, and after a little while, I found myself actively encouraging Koharu and Jihei to off themselves just to put me out of my misery.

On the positive side, director Masahiro Shinoda gives DS a stark and lovely look that creates an elegant appearance at all times. The movie also has a few surprisingly racy moments that perked up a perv like me; we see some bare breasts, and Jihei apparently provides Koharu with some oral pleasure on a couple of occasions.

Other than those mildly-interesting elements, however, I thought Double Suicide was an excessively-theatrical and plodding dud. It provided flat characters and placed them in uninteresting situations. The movie looked good and showed a little visual flair despite the sparse settings, but that wasn’t enough to keep me involved.

The DVD:

Double Suicide appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.33:1 on this single-sided, single-layered DVD; due to those dimensions, the image has not been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. Although the picture betrayed some weaknesses at times, it generally offered a surprisingly satisfying visual experience.

Sharpness consistently looked crisp and well-defined. Virtually no signs of soft or hazy images appeared throughout the film, as it always was clear and detailed. However, some jagged edges cropped up, and moiré effects could be a significant concern. The latter came through mainly in the clothes worn by the actors; the striped patterns caused some definite shimmering at times.

Black levels looked nicely deep and rich during most of the film. At times contrast seemed to favor the white part of the spectrum to an excessive degree, but I felt that this was intentional, especially since it mainly appeared during shots of Koharu; other characters looked more accurately-lit. Shadow detail seemed clear and appropriately opaque; some night exteriors seemed a little too thick, but these were the exceptions.

As is often the case with older movies, print flaws caused the greatest concerns with DS. However, these were generally not problematic. Some parts of the film displayed too many defects; I witnessed examples of scratches, hairs, grit and speckles. However, these issues were not constant and only flared on occasion. For the most part, the movie seemed acceptably fresh and clean, and I was definitely impressed with the general lack of grain; the film featured some very bright whites at times, and these betrayed virtually no signs of grain. Ultimately, Double Suicide has some visual flaws, but I nonetheless thought it offered a very strong picture.

Less satisfying was the movie’s monaural soundtrack. DS was dominated by dialogue. It featured occasional music and some minor effects - both of which sounded acceptably clean and accurate - but speech made up the vast majority of the film’s audio. Although I cannot truly judge the accuracy of the dialogue due to the language differences, it sounded as though the lines always remained intelligible. However, the dialogue displayed a consistently harsh and edgy quality throughout the film that made it difficult to listen to it at times. Had the speech appeared more natural and clean, the modest soundtrack would have earned a higher grade, but as it stands, it gets only a “C”.

Double Suicide features almost no supplements. All we find is an informative essay from “feminist film theorist” Claire Johnston. That’s right: no trailer, no commentary, no other extras. The lack of materials seems especially disappointing in a case like this since I - and others, I’m sure - know so little about the movie and the genre; it’d be nice to get an informative audio commentary to help fill in the gaps.

Double Suicide is the best filmed example of Japanese bunraku puppet drama I’ve ever seen, but that’s because it’s the only filmed example of Japanese bunraku puppet drama. Frankly, the movie is a pretentious dud; it’s the kind of picture that seems so preposterously artsy it almost comes across as a parody. The DVD offers a fairly solid image plus average sound and very few extras. If you’re in the mood for something really different, Double Suicide might be for you, but otherwise it goes on the “skip” list.

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Masahiro Shinoda's "Double Suicide" is one of several cinematic adaptations of famed Japanese playwright Chikamatsu's classic Bunraku puppet play "Shinju Ten no Amijima (Double Suicide at Amijima.)" Bunraku is one of three traditional Japanese theater styles, and includes black clothed puppeteers onstage manipulating their miniature charges. The story is the struggle between ninjo and giri, personal feelings and social duty. This struggle is the dominant theme of Japanese theater, bringing to life the oft-quoted expression "the nail that sticks up must be hammered down." To act from personal emotions is devastating.

Shinoda combines classical theater with stunning modern film techniques and cinematography. The nod to the origin of the story is found in the black clad puppeteers who hover in the background. It is a most excellent film in every way. It is all the more exceptional for its essential "japaneseness," far more so than Kurosawa's westernized films. The artificialness of Japanese theater is also captured well, as opposed to the attempted naturalness of western theater.

I do agree that this Criterion Collection DVD is beautiful, but sadly lacking for extras. In many other films the lack of extras would not be so important, but "Double Suicide" is a film that craves exploration. A filmed sample of the original Bunraku production, for example. Some background on
Chikamatsu. Those not familiar with Bunraku might not understand the dark, background puppeteers or be confused by the artful melodrama.

Still, even with such a barebones production, and excellent film and and an excellent DVD.