Muri shinjû: Nihon no natsu (1967)

Over the course of a night, a sex-obsessed young woman, a suicidal man, and a gun-crazy wannabe gangster are taken prisoner of a gang awaiting a shootout between a rival gang at dawn.

Director:

Nagisa Ôshima

Writers:

Mamoru Sasaki, Tsutomu Tamura

Stars:

Keiko Sakurai, Kei Satô, Tetsuo Ashida

Cast

Credited cast:
Keiko Sakurai	...	Nejiko
Kei Satô	...	Otoko
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tetsuo Ashida	...	Himeji
Yoshiyuki Fukuda
Hideo Kanze
Hôsei Komatsu
Shunsuke Mizoguchi	...	Tsukibito
Bunya Ozawa	...	Matsuyama
Masakazu Tamura
Taiji Tonoyama
Rokkô Toura	...	Television

Storyline

Over the course of a night, a sex-obsessed young woman, a suicidal man, and a gun-crazy wannabe gangster are taken prisoner of a gang awaiting a shootout between a rival gang at dawn.

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Plot Keywords:

sexy girl | nymphomaniac | miniskirt | mini skirt | short skirt | 

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Genres:

Crime | Drama

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Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

2 September 1967 (Japan)

Also Known As:

Die Nacht des Mörders

Company Credits

Production Co:

Sozosha

Technical Specs

Runtime:

98 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Quotes

Nejiko: I wish I could tie up all the men in Japan.

User Reviews

Solid Shadows with Conflicting Death Wishes

I know a few of this man's films. They are among the richest experiences I know, but I was surprised at how deeply this one worked on me.

The surprise comes in part from knowing how specific his target audience was. I am the right generation but the wrong decade and culture. I recently encountered the effect with "Naisu no mori" which took some significant shifting on my part to put me in the right place.

Oshima is politically radical, violently iconoclastic and deeply critical of what he sees as a broken Japanese culture. In this film he targets sensibilities that would be hard for even Japanese viewers to understand today. I didn't even try, and simply relegated all the broken souls I saw to a generalized brokenness. Perhaps that makes the film better, because it allows us to experience the technique of the thing more directly.

The story doesn't matter except that it throws an eighteen year old girl with a "screw loose" in with a suicidal AWOL soldier and a group of ragtag gangsters. Some of the action takes place in an abandoned futuristic city, but the core of the film is in a bunker of some sort. It is a terrific set and one wonders how in the world many of the shots were made. Some of them pan the space, showing walls that could not have been there at the start of the shot.

It is a complex space, concrete, with sometimes deep, sometimes close walls that seem to change. The floors and ceilings have different heights. There are stone altar slabs with spring water coming from roughly hewn holes. Sometimes the walls and floors have handcarved human-shaped niches. The lighting always seems natural but the sources would be physically impossible. The space reminded me of Tarkovsky.

Oshima says he hates Ozu and Kurosawa, but the cameras of both clearly is used and extended here. The poses are formal, the movements of the eye architectural. This film was unknown to me until today, and it replaces Welles' Othello as my go to example of an architectural film. The characters are less people than they are active components of the space. Every action, every perception — ours and theirs — is spatially situated. I loved it. Mind you, this is in spite of missing the social commentary; some would think it was if I were watching a mimed Shakespearean play. But I think this film is in the eye, the space.

It is so extraordinary that I am giving it one of my coveted 4 ratings.

Ted's Evaluation -- 4 of 3: Every cineliterate person should experience this.