Eros + massacre

Two interwoven stories. The first is a biography of anarchist Sakae Osugi (1885-1923) which follows his relationship with three women in the 1920s. The second centers around two 1960s' students researching Osugi's theories.

This film is epic, even in its cut form. Yoshishige Yoshida uses a variety of clever, yet subtle, techniques including the idea of reflection to show the split time frames. Unfortunately, the film's shades of gray are not as stark as they could be.

The film is generally considered to be one of the finest film to come out of the Japanese New Wave movement, and sometimes one of the best Japanese films in general. Although relatively unknown in the West, it has gained a small cult following. Thanks to Arrow Video, it can now be seen uncut on Blu-ray. Personally, it is not my cup of tea, but not everything can be.

The opening sequence is framed an cut in such a modern way that you would think that you are in a movie of the present. It totally graps your attention and doesn't let go till the end.

If you have any chance to see this movie in the original 202min. cut - use it !!

Just about any film that exceeds 3.5 hours in length is going to be a challenging watch, but this one even more so. Eros + Massacre loosely follows a real-life free-thinking radical (who talks big but doesn't actually do much, at least in the movie) whose life is complicated by the fact that he's in a relationship with three different women. Other scenes follow two young people in the 1960s, who talk about this historical figure, have an obsession with fire, and similarly have lofty ideas but lack the know-how or resources to rebel their way they want to. The characters from the past and (then) present also collide at points, in strange and surreal ways.

It's hard to read into exactly what the movie's going for. I'd want to assume it's being critical of its characters for the most part, or maybe satirical about revolutionaries/radicals who say they want change but stay stuck in their ways? Honestly, this film's so overwhelming I could be way off.

It makes for an interesting watch, though. I've never seen anything else quite like it. Without a doubt, it's also beautiful to look at. There's very little going on visually that looks ordinary or traditional, and some very ambitious camerawork and bizarre yet compellingly framed shots throughout.

As sacrilegious as it sounds, if I revisit this one day, I might watch the 160-minute version, even if the 3.5-hour one is the director's cut. At about the 165-minute mark was where I felt my attention start to wane a little bit, in all honesty.

(Also RIP to the film's director, Yoshishige Yoshida. Just so happened to watch this the day it was announced he passed away, at age 89).

The Japanese New Wave is one of my favorite cinematic movements, and this film comes recommended as one of the best of its era. Very unfortunately, it didn't do much for me at all. The one thing about it that I'll say right off the bat really impressed me was the cinematography. No time and place ever produced such gorgeous black and white movies, and this is up there with the best.

The film itself, though, is very slow-moving, kind of pretentious, and uninvolving. The story involves two timelines, one set in the Taisho period (starting in 1916) and the other in the present. It's about free love and the sexual revolution. In 1916, the philosopher Sakae Osugi practices and writes about free love. I'm pretty sure the Japanese word for philosopher translates literally in English to "aloof jerk," because this guy's version of free love is to screw around with different women and then say "Why can't you be chill about this?" when they confront him. In particular, Itsuko Masaoka becomes wildly jealous when he starts seeing Noe Ito on the side. She begins brandishing a knife, always threatening to get stabby with it. Late in the movie, there are like three consecutive sequences that take up a good quarter of the movie where she fulfills her promise.

The 1960s stuff involves two students who are studying Osugi. They have their own problems, but want to subscribe to the free love idea, which seems to be expanding around the world. At least in the director's cut, these segments take up only about a quarter of the film.

Look, I don't generally do well with long films, and perhaps this one's 3 hours and 36 minutes were just too daunting for me. The fact is, though, from the very beginning I was pretty bored with this one. 90% of the scenes just involve two or three people sitting around in a room bickering. I give Yoshida much credit for keeping it visually interesting throughout. The guy definitely has talent, but I wonder if this independently produced art film gave him too much freedom. Maybe he'd be better reigned in.

Whatever the case, I'm still perfectly happy to have this new Arrow Academy box set. Outside of Criterion, they're the best home video production company today. I hope I like the other two films better, and I hope one day I get to take a look at Yoshida's earlier, studio-produced films.

In the 20's, the anarchist revolutionary Sakae Osugi (Toshiyuki Hosokawa) is financially supported by his wife, the journalist Itsuko Masaoka (Yûko Kusunoki) and spends his time doing nothing but philosophizing about political systems and free love and shagging his lovers Yasuko (Masako Yagi) and the earlier feminist Noe Ito (Mariko Okada). He conveniently defends three principles for a relationship between a man and a woman: they should be financially independent (despite he is not); they should live in different places; and they should be free to have intercourse with other partners.

In the present days (1969), the slut twenty year-old student Eiko Sokuta has an active sexual life having sex with different men. She has a freak friend named Wada (Daijiro Harada) that is obsessed for fire and they usually play weird games using a camera while they read about Osugi and Ito.

"Erosu Purasu Gyakusatsu" a.k.a. "Eros Plus Massacre" has just been released in Brazil and I immediately bought this DVD for my collection. Unfortunately I can not understand the hype surrounding this film, and I was absolutely disappointed after watching it. The cinematography and framing are wonderful; the angles of the camera are unconventional; the acting is great; however the messy and prolix screenplay ruin the good aspects of this feature.

The cult director Yoshishige Yoshida is unable to use an adequate narrative for entwining two parallel stories, one of them based on a true story of a man and three women ahead of the time living a free love among them in times of repression, and an empty couple in the late 60's when the movement of free love is worldwide. Yoshida does not develop the background of the Japanese society in the 20's and limits to the repetitive situations of jealousy and despair of the women in love. After 210 minutes running time (the DVD has intermission), the boring and never-ending story is not totally clear for the viewer. This feature should have been edited and reduced of at least 120 minutes since the situations are very repetitive. Last but not the least, the actress that performs Eiko is very sexy and beautiful, but her name is not listed in IMDb. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Eros + Massacre"