The 19 Year Old’s Map (Japan, 1979) – 1.5/5
Life sucks in Mitsuo Yanagimachi’s misery drama. The Art Theater Guild production follows a 19 year old man whose life is empty. Friends ain’t doing any better either – everybody’s stealing, no one’s happy, and even Sukeban Deka II’s Keizo Kanie is banging the most unattractive broad in the hoods in the lack of better ho’s. It’s a competent zeitgeist, just like Tatsumi Kumashiro’s somewhat similarly spirited The Woman with Red Hair (also 1979) – whether these critically acclaimed depression bombs offer anything of value to the viewer is arguable. If 1979 Japan was really this dull, people out to have gone to cinema to see Norifumi Suzuki’s Truck Yarou films instead.
20th Century Nostalgia (Japan, 1997) – 4/5
Two high school students set out with video cameras to capture the life in the mid-1990’s Tokyo. Masato Hara’s cinematic feast is one of the 1990’s movie treasures. A predecessor for Anno’s Love & Pop and follower for Nobuhiko Obayashi, Hara mixes film footage with video camera cinematography and involves the characters in shooting the film. They run, dance, and sing – yes, the 15 year old lead star Ryoko Hirosue was a pop idol after all – and do all that while holding a camera. It’s a pop art explosion that blurs the line between art house cinema and idol experimentalism free of coherent form. While the more traditional scenes become almost a drag, the best bits radiate pure inspiration like a Russian power plant. The world just might be a better place if 35 millimeter filmmaking was banned. Don’t you think so?
in more detail, + infinity:
https://www.bulletsnbabesdvd.com/forums/ ... 6&start=85
Maybe it will get a UK release.
