Even the most highly regarded films won't meet with equal favor among all comers. I think this is quite fine, but it doesn't make any particular impression. 'Suzaki Paradise: Red light district' is easy on the eyes, with lovely, fetching filming locations, production design and art direction, costume design, hair, and makeup. Takamura Kurataro's cinematography is crisp and vivid, and possibly the top highlight for how vibrant the presentation is in turn; this is beautifully shot. The cast give strong performances, including Aratama Michiyo, Mihashi Tatsuya, Ashikawa Izumi, and so on. And there are strong themes at play in the storytelling of obsession between men and women - or really, possessiveness and jealousy, and demanding selfishness - and how it can get in the way of earnest living. Only, it seems to me that that storytelling and those themes are applied unevenly. And there's the rub.

In the first place, there is constant back and forth in the narrative as Yoshiji and Tsutae have near misses as they look for each other, and even as the movie plays with solid notions, it comes across less as a meaningful drama and more as a middling melodrama. Manabe Riichiro's milquetoast elevator music only reinforces that vibe. Secondly, for the majority of the length the plot centers the unfocused anger of Yoshiji as he flounders and seems to harbor ill feelings toward Tsutae's mobility. Amidst illustrations of other couples or individuals who share traits similar to the core pair, we eventually see that Tsutae harbors similar feelings - and despite the entirety of the preceding length, this is instead what becomes the linchpin for the writers and the filmmaker as dialogue zeroes in more on the virtue or vices of women than of men. Maybe I'm giving them too little credit; after all, they do show one side of the coin while speaking to the other, and maybe it was their underhanded intent through that duality to lay out the regrettable behavior of both men and women. Or maybe this really is simply sexist, and those involved were too ignorant to see it.

It doesn't matter, anyway. In the last moments Manabe's bland music endures as we see how nothing has changed after all between Yoshiji and Tsutae, nevermind everything that we've witnessed for the last eighty minutes. Well, I guess that's a wrap. What was it that I was supposed to be taking away from this?

I don't specifically blame 'Suzaki Paradise' for the fact that it took multiple attempts for me to get through it as I passed out for a good few hours in the middle. But in my experience a high quality picture can shake me from my drowsiness, while bad or so-so pictures can make me sleepy even if I'm wide awake. Whatever else is true here, it didn't keep me awake, and when all is said and done, considered as a whole I'm not surprised how my night turned out for me. Coming from the same filmmaker who would a few years later give us the exquisite 'The graceful brute' (or 'The elegant beast'), I admit to some measure of disappointment. Others will watch this and find it to be greatly meaningful; I'm glad for them. I see the potential that it had, but for my part I don't think it goes anywhere or does anything special. Such is life. On to the next feature.