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“Maybe the best example of black comedy in Japanese film” according to authority Gregory Barrett, ELEGANT BEAST was one of the last two films Kawashima made before his premature death, and is considered one of his masterpieces. Shot in Scope, the film is largely confined to the cramped flat of a family whose amorality Kawashima seems to both admire and disdain. The shrewd mother and father, experts in embezzlement and hypocrisy, have taught their children well. The daughter drifts from one sugar daddy to another, while the son has misappropriated millions of yen from his boss, who wants to bring Elvis Presley to Japan. In Kawashima's world, everyone is on the make: even the boss's accountant, a seemingly lovely widow, has used the money embezzled by the son to buy a hotel, and then promptly dropped the lovesick boy who committed larceny for her. Kawashima both celebrates and critiques the family, their scheming methods and corrupt motives reflective of Japan's attitude towards moneymaking in the postwar period. The film's title has been translated many ways, from DELUXE ANIMAL to GRACEFUL BRUTE, but perhaps the translation that best captures Kawashima's meaning is THE WELL-MANNERED BEASTS - that way the whole family, and perhaps an entire society, is implicated. The great Ayako Wakao leads an ensemble of actors who clearly take pleasure in their beastly roles. “A discovery . . . a rare comedy of manners and mores” ( Variety ).
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