Rakuyoju, 1986

A melancholic, nickelodeon arcade melody plays against the suffused, dreamlike image of a slow-circling merry-go-round, as a curious assortment of characters seated on the carousel gradually come into focus, then recede, before re-emerging again within the stationary frame. The nostalgic, surreal episode carries through to the voice-over narration of an aging author named Hatsu-rojin (Keiju […]

Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets, 1971

It comes as no surprise that the three filmmakers mentioned near the end of Shuji Terayama’s patently offbeat, garish, unclassifiable, and audacious youth culture film, Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets are Roman Polanski, Nagisa Oshima, and Michelangelo Antonioni. Modulating between a psychological study on alienation and disenfranchisement, and a rallying cry for […]