A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness (1977)

Bikini Girl with Fairway Woods

When 'A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness' was released in 1977, Seijun Suzuki returned to feature filmmaking after nearly a decade of forced absence, following his infamous dismissal from Nikkatsu in the wake of 'Branded to Kill'. Officially, the reason given was the alleged “incomprehensibility” of his work; in reality, it marked the breaking point between an increasingly radical auteur and an industrial system no longer able (or willing) to contain him.

At first glance, the film appears to move within a controlled and almost conventional framework — the world of golf, advertising, and media construction — where even the language itself seems borrowed from slogans and performance coaching. “Chance for a birdie,” we are told: a promise of precision, control, and success. Yet, as the film unfolds, that promise gradually reveals its darker implications.

The story of Reiko Sakuraba — a promising golfer turned into a carefully engineered media personality — unfolds as a precise study of manufactured identity. She is not simply an athlete, but a constructed image: shaped, refined, and deployed within a system that regulates not only her public presence, but increasingly her private existence as well.

At first, the narrative seems to follow a familiar trajectory — discovery, promotion, consolidation — but Suzuki gradually undermines this structure by introducing a destabilizing force that does not originate within the system itself, but from its most unsettling byproduct: the audience.

Kayo Semba, the obsessive fan, is not merely an antagonist. She is, in fact, the logical outcome of the very process that created Reiko. If an image is designed to be desired, internalized, and reproduced, then it becomes almost inevitable that someone will attempt to inhabit it — to replace, rather than simply admire, the figure it represents.

From this point onward, the film undergoes a decisive shift. Narrative progression gives way to a more ambiguous, disquieting flow, where the boundaries between public and private, performance and authenticity, begin to collapse. The intrusion into domestic space, the escalation of psychological pressure, and the gradual erosion of Reiko’s autonomy do not lead to a dramatic breakdown in the conventional sense, but to something far more insidious: a slow dissolution.

Reiko does not explode, nor does she openly resist. Instead, she empties out. She becomes a surface upon which external forces act — an image that no longer belongs to her. In this sense, the movie feels strikingly modern, anticipating dynamics that today appear almost commonplace: the commodification of the body, the fabrication of identity, and the invasive nature of public attention.

At the same time, the system that produced all this remains fundamentally intact. Even as events spiral into increasingly disturbing territory, the machinery of promotion, contracts, and media exposure continues to operate, ready to adapt, replace, and move forward. Within this framework, the figure of Miyake — manipulative, pragmatic, yet never overtly monstrous — functions less as a villain than as an integral component of the system itself.

Stylistically, while more restrained than his earlier works, Suzuki’s signature remains unmistakable. His use of space, the fragmented pacing, and the subtle but persistent dissonance between what is shown and what is implied all contribute to an atmosphere of controlled instability. The film seems constantly on the verge of rupture, yet never fully collapses.

The result is a work that resists easy categorization — neither fully commercial nor overtly experimental — but precisely for this reason deeply coherent within Suzuki’s artistic trajectory. This is not a conciliatory return, nor an attempt to realign with industry expectations; rather, it is a lucid and quietly devastating reflection on what that system produces: not only images, but desires, projections, and distortions.

'A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness' it’s not so much the story of a celebrity's downfall as the process by which a person gradually ceases to belong to themselves, becoming a canvas for others' projections.
And, once that point has been passed, there is no turning back.

8/10

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