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Haunting, melodic, melancholic, poetic... many more praising adjectives suit this movie. It marks the birth of Japanese modern cinema. Oshima brilliantly continues the masters Mizoguchi and Ozu, while at the same time marking a big turn in style and themes.

The movie is modern in both: style and themes. I dare saying that this style marked many great contemporary directors (as different as Tarantino, Jia Zhang-KE or Michael Mann). It has, for instance, a questioning and a renewal of the dramatic content that a scene can exhibit. Another novelty in Oshima's style is the manner in which he treats social themes: a mixture of documentary-style and fiction-style, greatly developed later by Jia Zhang Ke, and having an affiliation with the French nouvelle vague (the time overlap is no coincidence).

As for the themes: even if Mizoguchi was already interested in social problems and their reflection upon the individual, he was never so pessimistic as Oshima. Watch the movie and you'll see what I mean. But, in spite of a much more cruel view upon society, Oshima has the same deep message as Mizoguchi: the beauty. You can see it in every scene. Look carefully: there is much light in this dark movie!

This movie is one of the best American movies in the sixties. It's form, sharpness, concision, subtlety and great comedy make it a peak of new-wave American cinema and show the real talent of Brian de Palma.

If the movie is political, it is not a propagandistic one. It is a real artistic work, where everything is relative, fun is everywhere, politics is ridiculed just as the lack of politics. Nothing stands to the great destructive power of the irony and of the cinema. MASH by Altman can be compared to this movie.

All this comes with a great directing skill and novelty. Hitchcock and French nouvelle vague can be an influence (they are actually cited in the movie), but de Palma is original and his merits are beyond any doubt.

A masterpiece!

This movie is modern up to the bones: it's themes (solitude, adolescence, couple, discovering of the self), it's directing (cool, distant, objective and full of human truth), acting (the two main characters, but also the non-leading ones), the music (a sort of pop-psycho-rock, very deep and touching), all of this concures to give us a wonderful movie. It shows marvelously the evolution, but also the dissolution, of a young boy towards maturity. The relations between the self and the others, the discovering of the flesh, the torment and the solitude of the soul, all of this builds up towards the end, which is a cry of loneliness. But the life restarts, and we know that life is not a tragedy but eternal repetition: the hero gets back into reality, more human and stronger. This first movie is promising for the future of Antony Cordier. There is however a little critique to be made to the movie. It is too obvious sometimes: it is clear that the director wants to concentrate on the bodies, on the physical aspect of reality. There is a great pleasure in this, and every modern film-maker and film-lover knows it. The danger is not to fall into the extremes. The movie runs this risk, but it holds well overall. I'm already looking forward to seeing it again. The ending is brilliant, and the song on the back is tormenting!