Ryakushô: renzoku shasatsuma

In 1968, 19 year old Norio Nagayama killed four people in four cities in Japan, using a stolen gun.

Instead making a fictional account of his life and crimes, or putting together a clichéd documentary, director Masao Adachi applied his 'Theory of Landscape' and shows us the boy's environment as he travelled the country looking for work, punctuated with a sparse, discordant experimental jazz soundtrack and brief patches of narration filling in the basic details of his life in the run up to his murder spree.

While certainly not your average 'serial killer' film, there is much to reward those looking for something more cerebral from their films, and despite being constructed from a series of 'landscape' shots, 'AKA Serial Killer' leaves the viewer with much to think about long after the film has ended.

Fantastic film essay and a jarring frree-jazz soundtrack makes for a great time travel. Probably closer to 7 stars than 6, in my book...