So as to Dream: The Eternal Mysteries of Kaizo Hayashi

The world of Kaizo Hayashi is one of cinematic reverie and enchantment, whose reverence for film history—transposing genre and stylistic conventions from benshi and silent era serials to jidaigeki and hardboiled noir—results in one of the most imaginative and inspiring filmographies of the post-studio era. Forever associated with the elusive search of the detective, Hayashi eludes homage and pastiche, crafting works in dialogue with his influences, wherein—as Donald Richie remarked on Hayashi’s debut—“history is used as though it were living and perhaps as a consequence, it comes alive.” Lost romanticism, dreams deferred in light of earthly troubles, untethered time and anachronisms drift through Hayashi’s oeuvre, itself filtered through a postmodernist and transcendent lens. An independent talent who miraculously emerged in the 1980s outside of the typical avenues of PIA’s jishu eiga (autonomous or self-made film) circuit or pinku, Hayashi had no formal training, endeavoring to make films equipped with only his deep devotion to cinema. Invoking the mystery and intrigue of the moving image, amidst the flutter of celluloid frames, his cinema of the past brims with ingenuity and far-flung imagination, conjuring fantasies of what dreams may come.