Everything Goes Wrong

Lets look at the basic story: Jiro is a clean cut, hard working student looking to please his mother, who is having an affair with a business man. Dismissing his mother's situation as prostitution, he falls in further with a crowd of proud criminals and goes down the bad path. Also intertwining sub plots including a young woman trying to raise money for an abortion to not burden her living partner and Jiro's new girlfriend who is involved with a gangster.

Certainly at first glance of a summary like this, one envisions a life time channel movie, or something in the vain of MST3K fodder like "I Accuse My Parents". What ultimately saves this can be summed up thusly: Seijun Suzuki. I won't say this is his best movie necessarily, but it probably displays his strength best, making movies that revel in absurdity while not becoming flat out comedies.

It's to Suzuki's credit that many of these scenes come off less laughable than they should, while others are played up to such an extent you can only laugh, but all of it feels intentional and calculated. Characters will completely shift in behavior at points, and it's a testament to Suzuki we can still take anything seriously in all of this.

One particularly brilliant scene has a man trying to make a solemn, heart felt confession to someone, the kind of performance one would expect in a serious drama, while the person he's speaking to is making out with his girlfriend and talking in a snappy, Godardian fashion. A complete contrast of moods that seems like the actors are in two completely different movies, and yes it inspires a few laughs while still eliciting sympathy, and is brilliant in how it conveys the utter dissonance and break down in communication between them.

I mentioned Godard earlier, and certainly more than a few touches of "Breathless" can be seen here. There are a few jump cuts near identical to those in "Breathless", and towards the end Jiro even begins talking a little like Michel, however there's enough original flourish here. The camera work is sweeping and complimentary to this hyper paced film of only 70 minutes, weaving through plot points gracefully. There's a lot of content in this seventy minute picture but it is never rushed.

Well worth a look.

What a great, flowing, virtuoso bit of filmmaking. Effortless interlocking scenes moving one to the next. One character's bit of drama bleeds seamlessly into another. This interlocking style is not originated in this film but many of the more recent films have popularized something that this film did so well 50 years before. There is an apparent joyous enthusiasm with which this film is made and, while the subject matter is at times very intense and not always satisfying, there is an infectious energy on display by a doubtlessly talented director.

Crash, Pulp Fiction and other similar recent films owe a bit of a debt to Everything Goes Wrong and fans of those should take particular interest in this one.

I went into it with no expectations as I knew nearly zero about it and at the time I am posting this review only 16 people have even voted for it. A criminally under-appreciated film and it made an immediate impression on me which has continued to grow to admiration. After seeing Tokyo Drifter, Branded to Kill, Take Aim at the Police Van, Everything Goes Wrong is my favorite film by Seijun Suzuki so far.

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This post-war Japanese film essentially revolves around a young man by the name of "Jiro Sugita" (Tamio Kawaji) who lives alone with his mother and hangs out with his friends who have formed a street gang of sorts. Within this gang is a girl named "Toshimi Tani" (Yoshiko Nezu) who is quite smitten with Jiro and believes that the reason he doesn't return her affection is due to his overall shyness-and this only increases her resolve to be with him even more. What she doesn't know is that Jiro is insanely troubled by the fact that his mother has been having an affair for ten years with a married man named "Keigo Nanbara" (Shinsuke Ashida) who also loves her but cannot bring himself to file for a divorce from his wife. As a result Jiro harbors an extreme disdain for all women and treats them accordingly. So when Toshimi finally breaks the ice with him and they end up sleeping together she isn't quite prepared for what happens afterward. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this coming-of-age film had more than its fair share of personal dramas involving a number of other characters than those just mentioned. It also consisted of some overly-dramatic acting that is uniquely typical for many Japanese films of this type as well. That being said, while it may not appeal to all audiences, it wasn't too bad for the most part and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

Tamio Kawaji doesn't like that his mother has been a married businessman's mistress for fifteen years. He lives on the money, but it makes him miserable. He earns some money stealing cars, and his girlfriend, Yoshiko Nezu, sides with him. She tries to raise money for a friend who's gotten pregnant, only she doesn't want to bother the boy she is living with about an abortion. As the situation spirals out of control, the older couple tries to talk with the youngster, to explain things to him, but he doesn't want to hear about it.

Seijun Suzuki's movie about juvenile delinquency and the causes of it is sensationalistic, and offers no real solutions, only a beginning of one. Mostly, though, it's about violence and anger and alienation.

The life of bitter teenager Jiro Sugita (Tamio Kawaji) spirals out of control as his petty lawlessness and his resentment of his mother's relationship with a married man leads to violence. Seijun Suzuki's teen melodrama is an unpleasant snapshot of life amongst disaffected youth who were born in the ruins of Japan just as the War in the Pacific was ending. Jiro's resentment comes from his mother being forced to take money from a lover in order to survive, money that Jiro hates but willing demands (the idea of being dependent on outside money may have been very resonant with audiences during Japan's 'rebuilding' stage). The film is quite 'adult', with brief glimpses of nudity, issues such as abortion and youth prostitution, and candid and casual off-screen brutality (there are several indifferent references to girls in the gang being raped by multiple boys). I found it more disturbing than a comparable American 'JD' pic, possibly because the youth look more 'innocent' (especially the girls) and less like the 'cliched' street hoodlums you'd see in, for example, a John Cassavetes film. The direction is quite effective although the acting was a bit melodramatic at times (although angry teens are not particularly known for subtleties of behaviour). The cinematography is good except for a number of weak and obvious back-projection scenes and the young cast, notably Yoshiko Nezu as Jiro's 'in for anything' girlfriend Toshimi and Shinako Nakagawa as her desperate pregnant friend Etsuko, is quite good. An interesting look at the darker side of Japanese post-war culture, well-made but not for all tastes.