January 22 movie: Tokyo Drifter. Whoo-ee, this was fun! Mid-60s yakuza movie with a crazy cool visual sensibility. Lots of super-saturated colors. I particularly liked a scene where the hero is walking through deep snow wearing a powder blue suit, and a nightclub in which everything (walls, piano, people's clothes) is yellow. I was reading a Seijun Suzuki fan site which said that "eccentric" use of color was a trademark of his, which his studio didn't appreciate. According to the fan site they often forced him to make black and white movies just to prevent his exploration of color. Which is a damned shame; the colors are practically the main character of this movie.
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