Agitator

Four films by Miike Takashi are being screened at the Festival, and not even that is his complete production from the year 2001: in all he has directed seven films. The latest (at least at the moment of writing) is Agitator and it doesn’t look like a quickie: it is a true gangster epic lasting 2 1/2 hours, with many different characters. Miike himself plays a sadist who causes a gangster war, an excess that he pays for with his life. This results in an unstoppable snowball effect of violence, revenge and deceit both in the lower echelons, where loyalty to the direct boss is the highest alien life, as in the very highest, where meetings are just like those in multinational companies. Miike turned it into a classic, hence tough, sometimes bloody and cruel, often humorous and eventually moving film. He displays his command of the genre, with his specific control over the rhythm in particular: outbreaks of violence never appear from nowhere, but are discharged like a thunder shower. There are no major roles for women or love, but even more interest in cars and beautiful clothes: especially the leading role by Masaya Kato, one of the most beautiful young Japanese actors, proves in any case that the Japanese gangster is better dressed than his American, Russian or British counterpart.