陽炎座 Kagero-za (1981)

Based on a story by Kyoka Izumi - whose writings influenced a number of filmmakers - Kagero-za is another wildly inventive installment in the jump-cut, luridly hued, crazy-quilt pantheon of Seijun Sazuki.

The fever-dream follow-up to his acclaimed Zigeunerweisen, the enigmatically erotic Kagero-za is the second film in Suzuki's Taisho Trilogy. This time, the story is set in the disjointed cityscapes and surrounding countryside of 1926 Tokyo.

Playwright Matsuzaki (Yusaku Matsuda), who is supported by a wealthy patron, crosses paths with a beautiful woman on her way to a hospital. She tells him that a friend is dying, then implores Matsuzaki to accompany her because she is afraid of a mysterious older woman at the hospital who sells the fruit of the Chinese Lantern Plant, which is strangely rumored to actually be female souls. Matsuzaki at first refuses the beautiful woman's invitation, but later finds himself so obsessed with her - a luminous apparition - that he wants nothing more than a life of carnality and excessive passion. Matsuzaki eventually follows a trail of messages left by this phantasmal enchantress across the country to Kanazawa, only to realize that he is possibly being lured to his own demise.