Introduction and post-screening discussion led by Mark Anderson, Assistant Professor, Asian Languages and Literatures, University of Minnesota

This dispassionate tale finds a pair of middle-class Tokyo teenagers tangled up in a racket to extort money from older men who try to pick up young girls. Their aimlessness and narcissism prove an indictment of young people losing sight of collective activism, as Oshima uses old newsreel footage to compare the self-indulgences of the teens to the disillusion of slightly older student activists. This was Oshima’s first major box-office hit in Japan. 1960, new 35mm print, 96 minutes.

Copresented with the Consortium for the Study of the Asias, University of Minnesota.

The Nagisa Oshima retrospective and its North American tour was organized by James Quandt for Cinematheque Ontario, Toronto. The following individuals and organizations made the retrospective possible: Nagisa Oshima, Tokyo; Marie Suzuki, The Japan Foundation, Tokyo; Masayo Okada, Yuka Sukano, Atsuko Fukuda, Kawakita Memorial Film Institute, Tokyo; Eiko Oshima, Oshima Productions, Tokyo; Peter Becker, Kim Hendrickson, Fumiko Takagi, Sarah Finklea, Janus Films, New York.

Introduction and post-screening discussion led by Mark Anderson, Assistant Professor, Asian Languages and Literatures, University of Minnesota

This dispassionate tale finds a pair of middle-class Tokyo teenagers tangled up in a racket to extort money from older men who try to pick up young girls. Their aimlessness and narcissism prove an indictment of young people losing sight of collective activism, as Oshima uses old newsreel footage to compare the self-indulgences of the teens to the disillusion of slightly older student activists. This was Oshima’s first major box-office hit in Japan. 1960, new 35mm print, 96 minutes.

Copresented with the Consortium for the Study of the Asias, University of Minnesota.

The Nagisa Oshima retrospective and its North American tour was organized by James Quandt for Cinematheque Ontario, Toronto. The following individuals and organizations made the retrospective possible: Nagisa Oshima, Tokyo; Marie Suzuki, The Japan Foundation, Tokyo; Masayo Okada, Yuka Sukano, Atsuko Fukuda, Kawakita Memorial Film Institute, Tokyo; Eiko Oshima, Oshima Productions, Tokyo; Peter Becker, Kim Hendrickson, Fumiko Takagi, Sarah Finklea, Janus Films, New York.