Girl, unwilling, borne upstairs on shoulders of rampant youth. Rooftop rape. Close ups. Porcelain white face melts to blue reminiscence. Seashore rape. Need for death, need to be killed. And so it goes, still camera and long takes, repetitious dialogue and pretentious poetry, the slow unfolding of terminal youth, sorry isolated kids playing out sex and death on what might as well be the roof of the world. Referred to in the credits simply as girl and boy, Poppio and Tsukio find their obsessions entwine, find tenderness amidst cruelty but best of all for the viewer find expression as remarkably credible characters. Films dealing with the darker side of youth seem eternally prone to sensationalism and that is present here, but for all the exploitation gears that this film moves through the characters are authentic, their inescapable thoughts, the bindings of determination, of society, of their own desperation, all is real, bleak to a wrenching degree but always unsettlingly real. Both leads are outstanding, Mimi Kozakura harrowing in her determination for release, Michio Akiyama dead eyed and impassive, at first a strange presence he slowly endears himself through chemistry before the film shifts to darkest realms. Sublime largely black and white cinematography from Hideo Itoh stylises but also brings out every detail in bright relief, perfect complement to the generally sedate shooting style. Similarly apt is the score from Meikyu Sekai, heavy on subdued guitar, sweetly drawing out deep sadness in gentle moments. Director Koji Wakamatsu demonstrates mastery of his craft, exquisitely binding exploitation to art-house treatment, switching to colour for memory or grisly violence and deploying once or twice hand-held camera for shocking style as he pulls his actors inexorably to climax. The film does slip into the realms of the unnecessary in using photographs of Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate, underlining the climatic violence and its riff on the then all over the papers Tate/Lo Bianco murders but it felt somewhat out of place to me. The dialogue also at times perhaps goes beyond its intent, perhaps a little too arch at times, and the final moment is a little unsubtle, driving home in bleakly humorous fashion a message that could just have well have been left implicit. But the overall effect is hardly abated by these small slips, so potent is the ambiance. Not a film for everyone that's for damn sure, but to those that value the stranger side of serious cinema this is a must see. 9/10. Oh and in case you're wondering, there's tits and bloodshed for those that couldn't give a rats ass about serious cinema. So check it out, punk.
