Except for "Boy," the work of Nagiso Osima (born 1932) is scarcely known around the West though the film histories place him among the most important younger Japanese directors, regularly comparing him to Jean-Luc Godard, his near contemporary and an obvious influence on his style. I should say that Oshima is certainly influenced by Godardespecially in medium-distance shots. In long shots he is more often influenced by Michelangelo Antonioni. But in close-ups and in almost everything else he seems firmly and not too appealingly himself.
The burglar (Tadanori Yokoo), who, under duress, admits that his name is Birdey Hilltop, steals books good booksfrom a Tokyo bookstore. A girl (Rie Yokoyama), who says she's a clerk, catches him and turns him in to the boss. The boss doesn't care about the thefts and doesn't really believe the girl works for him, but he takes an interest in the young people anyway and attempts to straighten out their sex lives.
That is what the movie is all aboutstraightening out their sex livesthough incidentally it touches on a great many other things as well. For example, just as Birdey and his girl finally do straighten out their sex lives (she simulates hara kari using a little of her own blood, which happens to be the key to Birdey's heart) all hell breaks loose with a student riot in the Shinjuku section of Tokyo. That's how the movie ends.
But before it ends, Birdey and his girl have been through a variety of bizarre experiences that range from visits to an analyst (who analyzes transference of sexual roles and wants them to undress), to imitation rape (which turns out to be real when some onlookers get their signals crossed), to participation in a dramatic happening produced in a style that seems to combine traditional noh with guerrilla theater.
Some of the experiences are funny, as when the would-be lovers go to a pleasure house where attendants on the roof manufacture a rain shower timed just to the moment of passionate surrender. More often, the experiences are very dull, with an air of having been produced only for purposes of demonstration. Like the more recent Godard, Oshima's is a highly didactic cinema. But unlike any Godard, it seems impreciseand possibly less concerned with the quality of its thoughts than the momentary effectiveness of its images. The result is a high-powered sterility in the midst of much energetic busyness.
"Diary of a Shinjuku Burglar" has been photographed mostly in black and white, occasionally in color, and always with the sort of modish disjointedness that makes of the shock cut what the terrible zoom lens is to a different and less intellectual practice in movie making. I shouldn't want to dismiss Oshima on so little evidence, but I don't see that he has brought very much to this film beyond a skillful eye, a close familiarity with his betters and a lot of not very interesting ambitions.
The burglar (Tadanori Yokoo), who, under duress, admits that his name is Birdey Hilltop, steals books good booksfrom a Tokyo bookstore. A girl (Rie Yokoyama), who says she's a clerk, catches him and turns him in to the boss. The boss doesn't care about the thefts and doesn't really believe the girl works for him, but he takes an interest in the young people anyway and attempts to straighten out their sex lives.
That is what the movie is all aboutstraightening out their sex livesthough incidentally it touches on a great many other things as well. For example, just as Birdey and his girl finally do straighten out their sex lives (she simulates hara kari using a little of her own blood, which happens to be the key to Birdey's heart) all hell breaks loose with a student riot in the Shinjuku section of Tokyo. That's how the movie ends.
But before it ends, Birdey and his girl have been through a variety of bizarre experiences that range from visits to an analyst (who analyzes transference of sexual roles and wants them to undress), to imitation rape (which turns out to be real when some onlookers get their signals crossed), to participation in a dramatic happening produced in a style that seems to combine traditional noh with guerrilla theater.
Some of the experiences are funny, as when the would-be lovers go to a pleasure house where attendants on the roof manufacture a rain shower timed just to the moment of passionate surrender. More often, the experiences are very dull, with an air of having been produced only for purposes of demonstration. Like the more recent Godard, Oshima's is a highly didactic cinema. But unlike any Godard, it seems impreciseand possibly less concerned with the quality of its thoughts than the momentary effectiveness of its images. The result is a high-powered sterility in the midst of much energetic busyness.
"Diary of a Shinjuku Burglar" has been photographed mostly in black and white, occasionally in color, and always with the sort of modish disjointedness that makes of the shock cut what the terrible zoom lens is to a different and less intellectual practice in movie making. I shouldn't want to dismiss Oshima on so little evidence, but I don't see that he has brought very much to this film beyond a skillful eye, a close familiarity with his betters and a lot of not very interesting ambitions.