Monday, May 04, 2009

A little "rudderless abandon" on my day off

I think this is the fifth time I have written about the 1956 KO NAKAHIRA film "KURUTTA KAJITSU (CRAZED FRUIT)" on ROUTE 1. It's probably my favorite film.
I watched it again today, during a vacation day I took to help celebrate MY BIRTHDAY.
Two brothers compete for the love of a young woman during a summer spent boating and attending parties in this film depicting the TAIYOZOKU ("SUN TRIBE"), the affluent, amoral youth left to their own devices amid the early days of Japan's postwar economic boom.
"From it's opening shot -- 16-year-old Haruji (Masahito Tsugawa), his hair cropped nihilistically short and his eyes psychotically scanning the horizon, slicing through waters as black as blood in the moonlight, at the held of a switchblade-sleek power skiff christened the 'Sun Season' -- to its climactic whirlpool of retribution and oblivion, 'Crazed Fruit' emits a scream of rudderless abandon as deafening as that speedboat's Evinrude roar," wrote film historian Chuck Stephens.
Today was a good day to experience some "rudderless abandon," even if it was only on film.

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