Yokohama BJ Blues

As the year draws to a close, what better film for those winter months than the Radiance release of Yokohama BJ Blues? Directed by Eiichi Kudo who made The Fort of Death, the standout entry in the Radiance’s release of the Bounty Hunter Trilogy starring Yusaku Matsuda, he of The Game Trilogy and the centre-piece of Seijun Suzuki ‘s Taisho trilogy Kagero-za. Hearing the film described as being similar to Robert Altman’s divisive adaptation of The Long Goodbye, it was suggestive of a fascinating cinematic blend.

Part-time blues singer and private detective, BJ (Yusaku Matsuda), is being setup for the murder of his police detective best friend, Muku. Hounded by Muku’s old partner, Beniya, BJ works to clear his name and discover who killed his friend.

The comparison with Altman’s The Long Goodbye is an interesting one because tonally, Yokohama BJ Blues is a fit. Like Altman’s film, it has a certain slacker, shambling narrative. Despite the synopsis, this is not a pacey detective thriller, though it’s a mystery as much as a character piece and an investigation of time and place.  

As such Yokohama BJ Blues takes risks, because it could become boring, and boring quickly. Unfolding over and hour and fifty-minutes, often using minimal dialogue, filmed with a chilly blue tint, makes the tone clear right from the get-go, because it answers that age old cinematic question: what film opens with a man eating his dinner on the toilet? Though it may seem a jest it does set the tone; Matsuda’s BJ is no action hero, no great success, if anything he’s more like the majority of us: getting by. The opening scene also shows how the film is willing to show those moments that others might not. Moments later, as he runs to his singing gig, we see two Americans getting into a drunken fight over a woman. It’s all background but it’s arguably as important as what takes place in the foreground, because as noted this is all about small observations around the world of 1981 Yokohama. This is not a grand time or place and BJ’s world is populated with friends, sometimes enemies and often those living close to the edge.

Not that the film makes any particular moral pronouncements, if anything the opposite, as there is an aspect of BJ as the observer, as well as BJ the character. Early on we meet the Family, who become integral to the plot. The Family are an interesting construct, not quite yakuza, not quite legit (it’s mentioned that the yakuza are involved with them) but are clearly criminal. The head of The Family is escorted by a young kept man, his main henchman is gay and their homosexuality, unlike many films in the period, is just a thing. We see in the head of The Family and his young man a trade off (as we suspect the young man if anything has been groomed), a good life for sexual favours. Nothing is made of it, just as nothing is made of the fact that when needing a place to sleep BJ has a ring of keys and he enters a woman’s home, and drops into bed, regardless of who else might be in there. Again this could sound sordid or even misogynistic but it becomes the opposite, as there is nothing sexual in it, often aspects of humour raise their head but never at the expense of any particular character. Instead, it is all part of the flow of lives that interconnect, some more meaningfully than others.

As such the film meanders along but with purpose and I suspect, like The Long Goodbye, it could be divisive, because it does not quite play by the rules and the film is arguably more successful because of it. The meandering is integral to the film’s success, because the narrative unfolds in an unremittingly quiet manner.

The asides, such as BJ hanging out with the young rent boy might seem unnecessary, but they illustrate the connections and the characters, as each give insights into aspects of their characterisations. What is important is perhaps that much of what we see is not easily discernible, rather it is felt. It’s worth then noting that Matsuda as BJ, having been more of a star in action and exploitation films (I mean the first The Game film is pretty misogynistic stuff), imbues his character with an undefinable quality that lends itself to the film's overall atmosphere, something that he also does in Kagero-za. Like Bogart in The Maltese Falcon, BJ is a morally grey character that has to carry the film and Matsuda really delivers. I remember watching The Game trilogy and not realising this was the lead actor in Kagero-za, as he seems so changed (OK, I’d also not watched Kagero-za in a few years too).  

You could argue that by the time the film ends that Muku’s killer is obvious while other aspects of the plot are less so, but again that hardly matters because it is more about the time and place, and about BJ’s reaction to events. Again, parallels to Bogart: the falcon in that film is immaterial, it is the relationships, the emotions, the connections gained and lost, that matter, and Yokohama BJ Blues provides that.  

Perhaps the truest moments of BJ’s world are when he sings the blues with this guitarist playing Clapton-esque clipped notes. Here he can let out some pure emotion regarding his life, loss, and the world of Yokohama. BJ’s Blues are Yokohama’s blues, the blues of the souls of the many who live, die and leave Yokohama.

What matters ultimately is that Yokohama BJ Blues is a beautifully observed film that rests on creating its own unique tone. In Matsuda, it has an actor who can carry it without seeming to do much at all. There’s an art to wearing a film lightly, and he does it well. As a director, Kudo wears his skilful creation lightly too, often cladding it with humour, but always with a subtle if hard to see purpose.