Yoshida's Eros Plus Massacre is an AMAZING example of what narrative cinema can do with time and space, establishing characters that exist in a world of their own and yet feel very real (and are in fact based on some real people.) Ito Noe and Osugi Sakae were lovers and friends who fanned the flames of anarchist and leftist controversy during one the Taisho era (Japan's Weimar or Roaring 20s.) Noe was a writer who became Osugi Sakae's, an anarchist revolutionary and writer, lover. They were murdered by the state police after the Kano earthquake of 1923 (which was, in some ways and places, blamed on anarchist, immigrants, and other illogical things.)
Yoshida places us in the present day through rebellious college students, one an extremely sexual female who plays games with police and film directors the entire movie, the other a nearly impotent young man who is obsessed with current events and fatalism. They replay the Taisho events in their imaginations, which we are privy to, until the imaginations begin to take place within their own reality. Soon, the two are intertwined, and we're asked as viewers to deal with some improbable and unforgettable situations that question our role as a passive audience. The story and characters of both time periods are engrossing, and combined with Yoshida's radical compositions and a combination of subdued "historical" music and late 60s trippy rock, you're thrown into a delightfully open ended plot which you'll have a hard time shaking.
Yoshida's debt to Alain Resnais is on full display here. The film is a near sister to Last Year at Marienbad and Muriel. Antonioni's desolation films also come to mind, particularly The Eclipse. Yoshida's place in the Nuberu Bago (the Japanese New Wave) was cemented when David Desser named his book about the movement after this film, and its worth the advertisement. This is available in Japan without subs, and you can probably find it somewhere in the trading world with English subtitles, but it needs a proper DVD release (along with EVERY OTHER YOSHIDA film.) Highly highly recommended to any film fan with an open mind.
Yoshida places us in the present day through rebellious college students, one an extremely sexual female who plays games with police and film directors the entire movie, the other a nearly impotent young man who is obsessed with current events and fatalism. They replay the Taisho events in their imaginations, which we are privy to, until the imaginations begin to take place within their own reality. Soon, the two are intertwined, and we're asked as viewers to deal with some improbable and unforgettable situations that question our role as a passive audience. The story and characters of both time periods are engrossing, and combined with Yoshida's radical compositions and a combination of subdued "historical" music and late 60s trippy rock, you're thrown into a delightfully open ended plot which you'll have a hard time shaking.
Yoshida's debt to Alain Resnais is on full display here. The film is a near sister to Last Year at Marienbad and Muriel. Antonioni's desolation films also come to mind, particularly The Eclipse. Yoshida's place in the Nuberu Bago (the Japanese New Wave) was cemented when David Desser named his book about the movement after this film, and its worth the advertisement. This is available in Japan without subs, and you can probably find it somewhere in the trading world with English subtitles, but it needs a proper DVD release (along with EVERY OTHER YOSHIDA film.) Highly highly recommended to any film fan with an open mind.