Carlotta is organizing a retrospective of Seijun Suzuki's work, focusing on the end of his contractual period with Nikkatsu, one of Japan's largest film studios. During this time, Suzuki directed forty films over twelve years, and the retrospective features nine of these, including The Beast's Youth, Flowers and Waves, The Flesh Barrier, A Woman's Life, The Life of a Tattooed Man, Carmen of Kawachi, The Ballad of the Fight, Tokyo Drifter, and The Killer's Brand. These films represent a period when Suzuki, known for his unconventional style, pushed the boundaries of traditional Japanese cinema. Nikkatsu, known for producing popular melodramas and yakuza films, provided Suzuki with a commercial platform for his artistic experimentation. His films combined elaborate visual styles with a sense of disillusionment, often resulting in narratives that seemed disjointed or abstract. Despite this, Suzuki's work was marked by a strict formal structure, even as it appeared chaotic. Critic Shigehiko Hasumi described his approach as an "aesthetics of demolition," where classical cinematic forms are deconstructed and reimagined. The selected films show a progression toward more intense and fragmented storytelling. Themes of love, loyalty, and desire often lead to destruction or death, reflecting a deep pessimism. This pessimism is reflected in the form of the films themselves, where traditional narrative logic is disrupted by visual motifs and anti-narrative elements. In The Life of a Tattooed Man, for example, the death of a character is marked not by blood, but by the gradual reddening of the environment, highlighting the visual over the literal. Suzuki's work, though abstract in form, is rooted in a material understanding of the world. His films critique societal structures such as capitalism, militarism, and misogyny, often through the lens of prostitution. In The Flesh Barrier, set in post-war Japan, relationships are portrayed as economic exchanges, while A Woman's Life depicts a world where sexual relationships are controlled by a fascist regime. These films blend vivid visual styles with stark social commentary, creating a unique balance between form and meaning.