Oshima's Outlaw Sixties

Politically provocative, stylistically audacious, and instinctively confrontational, Nagisa Oshima was Japan's young turk of New Wave filmmaking. This five-disc box set from Criterion's no-frills Eclipse line collects the first narrative features from Sozo-sha, the independent production company Oshima created in 1961 to give himself more creative freedom. Although they appear to be lurid genre and exploitation films, under the surface lies a volatile world of outcasts, rebels, criminals, and dropouts driven by Oshima's familiar mix of self-destruction and obsession. In Pleasures of the Flesh (1965), a lovesick scholar guarding a fortune in embezzled cash decides to blow it on hookers and high living before ending it all. Violence at Noon (1966) tells the story of a serial rapist through the fragmented narrative and dueling perspectives of two women (one of them his first victim), who protect him from the police. After Sing a Song of Sex (1967), focusing on teenagers during a weekend of drinking, desire, and apathy, the works become completely surreal. Japanese Summer: Double Suicide (1967) draws an absurdist portrait of rebellious youth culture in an environment of sex, violence, and nihilism, while Three Resurrected Drunkards (1968) satirizes Japan's treatment of Korean immigrants via madcap humor. Some of the pictures feature brief nudity and decidedly lurid sexual situations (including bondage, sadism, and rape) and violence (some, but not all, of it outrageously cartoonish). While hardly great films, these examples of cinematic revolt from 1960s Japan provide a fine contrast to the more traditional classics of filmmakers such as Yasujiro Ozu. A strong optional purchase. (S. Axmaker)