Taifû kurabu

I've saw this film on tv back in the eighties so I hardly remember the details but the story is about a young group of teens during their adolescence and their experiences with the opposite sex. While the class is in school a storm raises and they have to stay in school during the typhoon. The story is shown in a very picturesque and (typical Japanese) silent way and won a movie price especially for it's unconventional kind.

I love films that contemplate life in its rawest form. Who we are as people, why we are. And I feel this film was aiming for that.

But it did not hit the mark. The characters were underdeveloped to the point that they all blended into each other, and that worked against the film. And the pacing. I believe this film can cut out 30 minutes worth of needless shots that go on like a run on sentence.

The plot, which is sprinkled about the film, moves so slowly. And even when it reaches a conclusion, it has no meaning whatsoever.

The shots are well placed, and the cinematography was great; aside from the exterior night scenes.

I give this film a four because the cinematography and the atmosphere created by it are quite nice. And there is one scene that is deeply suspenseful.

If you are looking for a film that has a mellow mood, this is for you. Don't expect to learn much, or understand most,

Somai captures the time and place of his setting in a way that's so much more deliberate than having shot it in Japan during the 80's. At the same time, the small town restlessness, horniness, and longing for something bigger than what is offered in your surroundings make the film timeless.

So much of the production is obviously great. How the camera follows the actors over chairs and desks and sliding doors make the school feel so personal. The cast is perpetually drenched during the second half and I just wanted to give someone a blanket, the tactility of the storm is inescapable. The few scenes in Tokyo are likely orgasmic to anyone who's listened to Plastic Love more than a handful of times.

With all that it's still the incredible cast of young performers that is the most impressive part. At first the carefree idiocy of all of them make the characters blend together, but each one have realistic traits that are discovered. Most are silly, but some are genuinely tragic.

The nostalgic indulgence of youth can be a bit overidealized, but there are parts that are stark and strange reminding the audience that being young isn't all the singing and dancing that the film seemingly wishes it was. Still, the clouds part by the end and what is left is an ultimately wistful impression of youth.

In my view, this film cannot be enjoyed. It is a sequence of boring scenes with no meaning whatsoever. It is hard to distinguish the characters as they all wear school uniforms in gloomy environments. Despite all the positive reviews and awards, I don't understand why someone would enjoy watching this. I don't know what to add. Maybe Japanese jurors like to watch schoolgirls in underwear. The end was especially disappointing after dozens of disappointing scenes. Scenes were you don't understand why characters act like this and why. No I am repeating myself and this review becomes as boring as the film.

It is easily his most beautiful and artistic work. He is a master of evoking feelings and spaces, almost like Storaro / Bertolucci here.

Watching Somai's films in order, every time I think he reached some formal apex, his next one is even better. What a study for cinephiles.

The images are just unreal. The overall feeing of melancholy, perhaps peaking with the children in the typhoon it is both apocalyptic and freeing. Even nostalgia comes short as a description. At points it feels metaphysically surreal. Think about how the school is being repurposed in front of us, as shelter from the typhoon. No schedules, no classrooms, all those chairs and items unused.

This adjustment does something to the mind, taking you somewhere outside the frame of your existence into a higher plane. It's a rare power for a film to evoke. The review calling it an anti-coming of age film is spot on. One thing I gather to expand on that, with Somai working in the 80s is it is not going to give you classic films on those old fashioned terms.

That reminds me of the American Gen X punk attitude, the aggravation in Somai's work, while yet is so formal, its edge mixes in the broader wisdoms. Rather than the instinct of the young artist, to throw all the past in a basket fire of hate. Thinking they invented everything.

Somai's deepest cutting films respect one thing I see in the arts, is I wonder if artists really know what they sign up for? To be a champion soldier of cinema, one must carry the burden, the weight of the human soul. A good one will go there knowing you can't quite come back from it. The pain of it all reads so deeply here along its beauty, forming an impact of wisdom.