Seishun zankoku monogatari

I know that many consider this film to be a classic and my very low score will most likely trigger a lot of "not helpful" votes, but I just didn't like this film at all. I understand that the film is in many ways a Japanese film version of the important French film BREATHLESS, but like BREATHLESS, the leading characters are so unpleasant I had a hard time sticking with the film--though with THE CRUEL STORY OF YOUTH the characters a lot more unpleasant and slimy.

The girl is an idiot high schooler who slavishly follows after a college student who treats her like garbage. He rapes her twice at the beginning of the film and in return, she devotes herself to him!! The guy, in addition to being a rapist, is a violent user. The loves to fight and sleep around and does little to hide it from the girl. Considering that neither seem to ever go to class and don't have jobs, they earn money by setting up men to try to rape the girl--at which point the guy jumps out and beats up the men and takes their money. It sounds like a match made in heaven, right?! So why make the American title of the film "THE CRUEL STORY OF YOUTH"? What's cruel about the story--both characters choose to be evil and choose their fates. It isn't like they are somehow victims (though the film does try to paint it that way). Their lives are pointless and selfish. Rape, abortion, extortion, indifference--after a short time I found myself getting very tired of the whole thing and, oddly, when the film had it's supposed sad ending, I was thrilled! I say good riddance and bring me a film I can care about--not this nihilistic and nasty little film.

There's a fair few Japanese crime films from the 1950s and 60s that have fun-sounding titles and end up being breezy, cool watches. I thought Cruel Story of Youth was going to be one of them, but I was off the mark. It's a darker and often confronting crime melodrama that I guess you could also describe as a twisted romance, but even that's a stretch, as the core relationship in the film is extremely troubling and is viewed by the movie as such, too.

That's to say the film's intentionally dark and unsettling, but that doesn't mean everyone would like it. That's also par for the course when it comes to director Nagisa Oshima. Naturally, this 1960 release isn't as extreme as his boundary pushing films from the 1970s onwards, but for its time, it would have been shocking. IMDb tells me it was banned in the UK, and only passed with a 15+ rating there in 2008.

Oshima is a great filmmaker though, and one that deserves mentioning alongside the likes of more well-known legendary Japanese directors like Akira Kurosawa and Masaki Kobayashi. This one is not one of his very best, but it's very solid overall, and holds up well, in that its core story about a troubled, rebellious, dangerous, and youthful romance still has moments that are unsettling and impactful.

So overall, definitely not a fun gangster/crime flick as I expected, but what was there instead was quite impressive in its own right.

"Cruel story of youth" seems to me a hard movie to give any judgment about. Trying to watch at the events of the drama from the point of view of the time (historically), I see not more than a Japanese version of "lost generation" drama. The ideals of parents passed away in the recent war, the new aims were not created – is it not a universal generation crises of searching your own way in life? While watching the movie, I asked myself if it is necessary to search for any hidden message of the director… if there is one…

The characters and events are described in a very direct, comparable to the animation speed and simplicity way (that was one of the points which I could dare to compare with the "trash-movie" stylistic). There is a lot of "beating directly into the face" full of disguise scenes (for the year 1960 the movie is full of violence and sex – what I guess was pretty "fresh" and not known at that time). The message of the director was delivered in the right way, no doubt that the movie drew public attention – that is the other point which I appreciate in director's work.

Now to the heroes (or anti-heroes, as I think a lot of people would tell): the main heroes of the drama present the whole collection of sins and all kinds of misbehavior. The antipathy to them is growing with every their word and step. The two try to fight the way through to the future and… fail. There is no one around (false existence or practical non-existence of a good example neither in society nor in their own family) to give them the right answer on: what to do to be happy? As Kiyoshi says: "We only sell ourselves in order to go on living. No matter how I fight it, that's what the world is like." Isn't life disappointing?

Love and death are linked in quite an extravagant way in this movie, resulting in a kind of "romantic antiromantic". What is left at the end? A symptom of a lost generation's aimlessness and moral bankruptcy (and lost innocence)… No doubt, "Cruel story of youth" is a very expressive movie the main topic of which could get up-to-date anytime (as it is well known that times pass – men and problem stay the same).

This is a curious film, definitely of its time, but not from France. The two lovers Kyoschi and Makoto have a devil may care attitude about things. At times, you want to shake the female lead (Makoto) and tell her to be more responsible. Kyoschi is sometimes just this side of brutal to her, both physically and psychologically. The film reminds me a bit of "Rebel Without A Cause" and even "Breathless", which is more than likely intentional. For a Japanese film, it is fairly gritty. My only complaint is that most of the characters besides the two star crossed/unfortunately matched lovers are underwritten. I wonder if anyone thought at that time to show this film to youths in Japan, to let them know that falling in love is not always the true path to happiness. An interesting, fully watchable film.

See Cruel Story of Youth. It is an amazing film. Oshima Nagisa is probably best known for his avant garde work- films like "In the Realm of the Senses" and "Diary of a Shinjuku Thief"- but his earlier work is more compelling, if less sensational. This film tells the story of Makoto and Kiyoshi, two youths who suffer from the social malaise typical of their generation. They express their frustration in violent and poetic ways, which makes up the substance of the film's narrative. But putting all that aside, it's beautifully filmed and by it's end, completely heartwrenching. The color contrast is almost unprecedented- bright reds and blues set against pitch blacks. At times it has the sensibility of a yakuza film- violence abounds and Oshima makes use of sharp pans typical of that genre, giving it a very cool, retro feel. At it's core it's a love story, but of a sort that modern audiences will probably never see in a contemporary film. It shows love as the cruelest thing imaginable, making it difficult to watch at times, but in the end, impossible to forget.