In the Yakuza world : the Japanese face of film noir

The paper presents how the poetics of film noir influenced Japanese gangster film (yakuza eiga). The author stresses similarities of themes and styles, a pessimistic view of the post-war reality, the sense of confusion and existential crisis, accompanied by the decline of the former values and the inability to accept the new order. The ubiquitous atmosphere of corruption seems to permeate the world of alienated protagonists. The works by Akira Kurosawa, Masahiro Shinoda, Seijun Suzuki and Kinji Fukasaku, analyzed by the author, clearly refer to American film noir through their narration structures, frequent flashback sequences, the use of a diagonal frame composition or chiaroscuro, as well as through a figure of the main character who is usually lonely and doomed to death.