Though he’s best known for his modernist domestic dramas, the great Yasujiro Ozu began his career making eclectic genre pictures—each its own unique, breathless love letter to Hollywood. His undeniably cool Dragnet Girl takes its cue from American gangster films, particularly Josef von Sternberg’s Underworld, to tell the story of a moll (Kinuyo Tanaka) desperate to keep her boxer-turned-gangster boyfriend from falling for an innocent shop girl and going straight. Hyper-stylized and psychologically dense, this silent crime film begs to be experienced anew with the atmospheric, transporting electro-ambient film score by critically lauded musical group Coupler in its New York premiere.
About Coupler
The group was founded in 2011 by Lambchop veteran Ryan Norris as a solo electronic project but over recent years has transitioned through duo lineups and swelled to an octet before settling comfortably into a trio. Its core now is Norris along with Rodrigo Avendaño and Rollum Haas. The group is intersectional, exploring the convergences of man and machine, live and recorded, composed and improvised, stasis and flux. Their latest release, Gifts from the Ebb Tide, sits at the center of several other recordings that were gestating concurrently and shares DNA with each: HeCTA’s The Diet, Lambchop’s FLOTUS and Coupler’s own Blue Room Sessions.
Special thanks to Ira Resnick for his generous support of Dragnet Girl.