Juventude Desenfreada

I liked seeing a raw, edgy, uninhibited side of Japan, and director Nagisa Oshima's style which mirrored the French New Wave directors from this period whom he admired. I liked the nice cuts and shots he captured, the rock and jazz music in the soundtrack, and his unflinching look at the cynicism present in Japan following WWII. There are some who relate it to "Rebel Without a Cause", but I don't like the comparison, because "Cruel Story of Youth" is over-the-top in its darkness and nihilism, none of the characters are likable, and one doesn't get any sense of the 'tragic, misunderstood, disaffected youth' or feel empathy towards them. There's also not enough content which relates their delinquent behavior to their upbringing or the times which would allow us to see it as an indictment of society.

You could say all this darkness is because life in Japan after the war was far darker than America, and while there is some truth to that, the film's biggest problem is the cruelty towards women which pervades it. You'll see attempted rape, rape (twice), attempted forced prostitution, an extortion scheme that involves using a woman as bait in dangerous situations, using women young and old as sex objects without any feeling, and utter indifference to abortion from a surprise pregnancy. Cruel story, indeed. The lead female character is shockingly stupid. There are some characters in films who are just stupid, regardless of their sex, but this is part of a larger theme. The film is all about in-your-face rebellion in its content, frankness, and even style (which I ordinarily love) – and yet how sad is that Oshima perpetuates the (very traditional) theme of misogyny. It's the combination of this and the general unlikeability of the whole thing that tempers my review score to an average rating, for what is such a landmark film from a talented director.

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.

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.

Not the best film for it's time; I've not seen anything else from this director, so I can't comment on that aspect of the film....

I had to remind myself several times while watching that this film is almost fifty years old. Elements of the story remind of today, especially the "scams" and the gritty aspect of teenage relationships and sexuality; at the same time I could never suspend my disbelief over the age of the actors -- they in no way resembled a high school girl or a college boy. The editing is a mess; I'm guessing that the director was attempting something artistic. The story, however, is very good. (Unfortunately the translation I watched mistranslated several scenes and so took the punch out from the delivery.)

I could recommend this movie to anyone who wants to see some of the grime of post-war Japan. But if you watch this film leave your modern sensibilities at home: Joan Collins said that she was rapped by the man that later became her husband and that seemingly topsy turvy attitude about sex and relationships is a large part of this film: the definitions were different, sex was novel on the big screen and peoples perspectives were not the same as today and I see no point in complaining about the gaps; I feel it's better to acknowledge them, think about how they might have been viewed and then look past them to the story the director was trying to tell.

Oshima's film about adolescents in Tokyo was made in 1960 and is extraordinarly prescient: the picture he portrays of teenagers is far in advance of Swinging London and the Summer of Love in San Francisco. His teenage protagonists not only have sex together, but are involved in a sex-crime scam where the girl acts as a decoy for middle aged men to be blackmailed for trying to solicit her sexual services. The treatment of adolescent sexuality is far ahead of its time:Oshima gives us an accurate picture of teenage sexual activity that was unthinkable at the time. Brilliantly shot in cinemascope and exquisitely lit, the film is visually arresting. The sequence where the male lead eats an apple over his sleeping girlfriend's sleeping body is one of many highlights. A little known masterpiece by one of the masters of twentieth century Japanese cinema.