Contes cruels de la jeunesse

See Cruel Story of Youth. It is an amazing film. Oshima Nagisa is probably best known for his avant garde work- films like "In the Realm of the Senses" and "Diary of a Shinjuku Thief"- but his earlier work is more compelling, if less sensational. This film tells the story of Makoto and Kiyoshi, two youths who suffer from the social malaise typical of their generation. They express their frustration in violent and poetic ways, which makes up the substance of the film's narrative. But putting all that aside, it's beautifully filmed and by it's end, completely heartwrenching. The color contrast is almost unprecedented- bright reds and blues set against pitch blacks. At times it has the sensibility of a yakuza film- violence abounds and Oshima makes use of sharp pans typical of that genre, giving it a very cool, retro feel. At it's core it's a love story, but of a sort that modern audiences will probably never see in a contemporary film. It shows love as the cruelest thing imaginable, making it difficult to watch at times, but in the end, impossible to forget.

This is an interesting story about how stupid and self-destructive people—young people in this case—can be. This movie was released in 1960, but look around and it's clear that the issues it brings up—although in a somewhat overly melodramatic way—continue to be relevant today, and probably always will be as long as human beings exist. The previous reviewer has the right to their negative opinion, but I think they missed the big picture, perhaps they are just too young to know any better.

Besides following a good storyline, it is also well-shot. The cinematography is crisp. And the overall nature of the photography gives the film a fantastic and hermetic quality. It's gritty, and obviously seeks to be realistic, but it has the feel of a fable or a morality tale.

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.

"Cruel story of youth" seems to me a hard movie to give any judgment about. Trying to watch at the events of the drama from the point of view of the time (historically), I see not more than a Japanese version of "lost generation" drama. The ideals of parents passed away in the recent war, the new aims were not created – is it not a universal generation crises of searching your own way in life? While watching the movie, I asked myself if it is necessary to search for any hidden message of the director… if there is one…

The characters and events are described in a very direct, comparable to the animation speed and simplicity way (that was one of the points which I could dare to compare with the "trash-movie" stylistic). There is a lot of "beating directly into the face" full of disguise scenes (for the year 1960 the movie is full of violence and sex – what I guess was pretty "fresh" and not known at that time). The message of the director was delivered in the right way, no doubt that the movie drew public attention – that is the other point which I appreciate in director's work.

Now to the heroes (or anti-heroes, as I think a lot of people would tell): the main heroes of the drama present the whole collection of sins and all kinds of misbehavior. The antipathy to them is growing with every their word and step. The two try to fight the way through to the future and… fail. There is no one around (false existence or practical non-existence of a good example neither in society nor in their own family) to give them the right answer on: what to do to be happy? As Kiyoshi says: "We only sell ourselves in order to go on living. No matter how I fight it, that's what the world is like." Isn't life disappointing?

Love and death are linked in quite an extravagant way in this movie, resulting in a kind of "romantic antiromantic". What is left at the end? A symptom of a lost generation's aimlessness and moral bankruptcy (and lost innocence)… No doubt, "Cruel story of youth" is a very expressive movie the main topic of which could get up-to-date anytime (as it is well known that times pass – men and problem stay the same).

Kiyoshi is a student with a completely immoral attitude towards women (and other things too). His young lover Makoto seeks adventure with him. Unlike her younger sister, a former left winger she doesn't bother about changing the society but she just wants fun, but the completely egotist attitude of her lover brings about ruin for both.

the beginning of the film which is ingenious and visually very inspiring is followed by a rather mediocre middle part, where their method of gaining money by luring middle aged men into a trap is described excessively. Nevertheless you don't get to know if the first scene of the film is already a part of that profession or a mere accident.

But now watch the film for yourself.