Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

NIHON SHUNKA-KO / SING A SONG OF SEX (1967)

Best known for the sensationalist aspects of IN THE REALMS OF THE SENSES/’76 and MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE/’83 (not so much for the films themselves), this earlier work from Japanese writer/director Nagisa Ôshima finds his compositional skills far outpacing story, characterization & philosophy. The film tags along as four aimless high school grads wonder about test scores & their future, ogle co-eds and interrupt anti-Vietnam sing-alongs (of The Weavers Greatest Hits!) with a raunchy ditty their Prof taught them during a booze-fueled meal. As night turns to day, the disaffected youths are revealed as both amoral & apolitical, with a passive approach to life that brings fatal consequences. The smell of the ‘68 student riots is already in the air (along with Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE/’71), but the issues, as presented, feel forced, reprehensible actions as tricked-up as in some Neil LeBute ‘problem’ play. The real puzzle is why no one says ‘No’ to these neatly dressed punks. Just another mystery of Japanese culture that doesn’t translate or travel*, though it does leave you with an appetite for more Oshima.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Stateside viewers will spot the usual Western product advertisements in the backgrounds, including a great Coca-Cola logo. But look fast to catch Julie Andrews & Paul Newman on a TORN CURTAIN poster. How did that one ‘translate & travel?’

No comments: