Erosu purasu gyakusatsu

The opening sequence is framed an cut in such a modern way that you would think that you are in a movie of the present. It totally graps your attention and doesn't let go till the end.

If you have any chance to see this movie in the original 202min. cut - use it !!

No, I'm just kidding. But you will be reminded of "Blow-Up" -- as well as his Zabriskie Point" (and "The Baader Meinhof Complex," and other recent films -- "Après Mai," for example). People living differently, finding new ways to shoot each other, and cutting up the footage.

But the thing with "free love" is somebody can break up, get dumped, every day.

(I'd also recommend Iaon Couliano's "Eros and Magic in the Renaissance," 1984.)

I was told I'd love this film. Instead I hated it. The only thing I liked was the creative cinematography but even that was overdone. There is two stories, one in the past and one in the present (1969 when this film was made) and most of the time when it switches from one to the other, it made little sense. In fact, most of this movie didn't make sense.

There was about ten minutes of story. A lot a time is spent on surreal photography. To much time. There is one scene or plotline they did like 7 or 8 different versions of. After the second or third time I really didn't care. The acting was good but I didn't care about the characters. The ending was an even larger disappointment. It didn't really tie things up.

After 3 and a half hours of this, was there a point to this movie? This was part of a trilogy and I'll skip the other two. You should skip all three.

Just about any film that exceeds 3.5 hours in length is going to be a challenging watch, but this one even more so. Eros + Massacre loosely follows a real-life free-thinking radical (who talks big but doesn't actually do much, at least in the movie) whose life is complicated by the fact that he's in a relationship with three different women. Other scenes follow two young people in the 1960s, who talk about this historical figure, have an obsession with fire, and similarly have lofty ideas but lack the know-how or resources to rebel their way they want to. The characters from the past and (then) present also collide at points, in strange and surreal ways.

It's hard to read into exactly what the movie's going for. I'd want to assume it's being critical of its characters for the most part, or maybe satirical about revolutionaries/radicals who say they want change but stay stuck in their ways? Honestly, this film's so overwhelming I could be way off.

It makes for an interesting watch, though. I've never seen anything else quite like it. Without a doubt, it's also beautiful to look at. There's very little going on visually that looks ordinary or traditional, and some very ambitious camerawork and bizarre yet compellingly framed shots throughout.

As sacrilegious as it sounds, if I revisit this one day, I might watch the 160-minute version, even if the 3.5-hour one is the director's cut. At about the 165-minute mark was where I felt my attention start to wane a little bit, in all honesty.

(Also RIP to the film's director, Yoshishige Yoshida. Just so happened to watch this the day it was announced he passed away, at age 89).

Two interwoven stories. The first is a biography of anarchist Sakae Osugi (1885-1923) which follows his relationship with three women in the 1920s. The second centers around two 1960s' students researching Osugi's theories.

This film is epic, even in its cut form. Yoshishige Yoshida uses a variety of clever, yet subtle, techniques including the idea of reflection to show the split time frames. Unfortunately, the film's shades of gray are not as stark as they could be.

The film is generally considered to be one of the finest film to come out of the Japanese New Wave movement, and sometimes one of the best Japanese films in general. Although relatively unknown in the West, it has gained a small cult following. Thanks to Arrow Video, it can now be seen uncut on Blu-ray. Personally, it is not my cup of tea, but not everything can be.