flying swords
 

PostED ON 20.10.2023

With a few swift strokes of his sword, Japanese filmmaker Kenji Misumi delivers his version of chambara, a highly-codified film genre, featuring a solitary warrior and an invincible sense of honour. In his version, human nature is more uncertain, and the intimacy of life, like that of combat, is filmed in extreme closeup.

The Kenji Misumi all-nighter at the Lumière film festival begins with a rapidly moving cavalcade involving an incomparable fighter, Zatoichi, the blind title character of The Tale of Zatoichi (1962). Set against a vast backdrop, Zatoichi, serious and utterly seductive, slays his enemies all the more imperiously because he cannot see them. Misumi makes his hero's sword the embodiment of his spirit. Zatoichi is constantly on the alert, feeling everything without needing vision, like a Jedi master before his time. Misumi always places the hero in a ready position, posed to kill, but also capable of tenderness.

Misumi's cinema is as startling as sharp blades coming out of nowhere. Advancing deeper into the night with Destiny’s Son (also 1962), we witness - in slow motion and close-up - the fight to the death between two women. Here, the blade no longer acts to right a wrong, but as the impetus for an all-consuming vengeance, in the midst of almost fantastical settings, set to hypnotic music. Misumi's vision of women is remarkable and manifold. They are courageous beings who have absolutely no choice but to survive in a world of men, themselves often caught up in a spiral of inextricable patriarchal traditions. Destiny’s Son contains one of the most astonishing and inventive fight scenes, with nudity revealed, of this samurai sword all-nighter.

Destiny’s Son, 1962 © The Jokers Films

In 1964, Misumi left the Edo age, Japan's mythical feudal era, to direct The Sword, which features a theme that runs throughout the all-nighter: young men under the influence of a master. The story is set in contemporary times, meaning the battles are essentially ideological. What the male apprentices are seeking in the sword all-nighter is pure nobility and honour, in the spirit of the samurai, while the young women are driven off the rails by not being considered. But the raw confessions of a girl in dark glasses leave an effect as impactful as the combat scenes.

What better way to round off the night than with Sword Devil (1965)? Here, simply put, the sabre is a symbol of death. The young hero, a prodigy of the sword and gardening (!), hesitates between the violence imparted by his peers (which he lays down while forgetting the ideals of justice), and a young woman. Such is the powerful style of Kenji Misumi's storytelling: both dialogue-driven and highly visual.

Virginie Apiou