Enjo (1958, Kon Ichikawa)

57/100

Second viewing, last seen 24 June 1995. (My screening log indicates that I rented it from Kim's Video between theatrical viewings that same day of Apollo 13 and Party Girl—the one starring Parker Posey, not the one directed by Nick Ray.) Watched it this time in honor of the late Tatsuya Nakadai, who steals the movie as a bitterly cynical fellow seminary student (I think? why he's around isn't super clear, at least to an American viewer more than half a century later) who at one point employs his twisted right leg as a seduction tool while simultaneously mocking the protagonist's stutter. Nakadai gives Enjo a welcome jolt of energy when he first appears about halfway through; prior to that, I'd been feeling a bit frustrated with the film's depressive trajectory—we're told up front that Goichi's gonna burn down the Pavilion, so for a long time it's just a matter of waiting for him to get demoralized enough by the religious hypocrisy he witnesses there. Raizō Ichikawa (no relation, it seems) either has Resting Callow Face or did a fine job of making Goichi look perpetually ill-equipped for every aspect of being alive, and after a while I longed to be watching someone with at least a smidgen of resolve and dignity, as opposed to Japan's lengthiest and slowest-burning fuse. "Nobody understands me," the subtitles have him moan aloud to himself not long before lighting the match, and Enjo's presence near the bottom of my '58 top 10 list for the past three decades (A Night to Remember has taken its place) suggests that such self-pitying whininess once annoyed me a lot less than it does now. Beautifully directed, though, even if I don't love this particular grayish monochrome stock; cutting from the blaze back to the police station and Goichi's face wreathed in the smoke from one cop's cigarette is an especially nice touch. Department of Odd Coincidences: I immediately recognized the Zen koan about a cat that's recounted here, and eventually realized I'd heard it told onscreen just three weeks ago in Radu Jude's Kontinental '25, made 67 years later.

ANAL-RETENTIVE TITLE CORNER: Some sources, including Letterboxd and the IMDb, call this film Conflagration, and I'd probably switch were there a U.S. (or even U.K.) DVD or Blu out there using that title. Don't see one, though, and the New Yorker Video cassette I rented 30 years ago went with Enjo, as did the Maltin Guide for its entire history. So I'm sticking with the title I'm familiar with, at least for now.