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JAEFF: Kō Nakahira's Crazed Fruit & Chikako Yamashiro’s Your Voice Came Out Through My Throat at Arthur & Paula Lucas Lecture Theatre, King's College London

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Time 19:45
Date 21/09/18
Price £10.5

JAEFF marks the beginning of the Japanese New Wave & the passing of acting legend Masahiko Tsugawa with their opening night movie, Nakahira’s Crazed Fruit, a film that cause scandal upon it's release.

Based on the controversial novel by Shintarô Ishihara, Crazed Fruit caused an uproar upon release for its frank depiction of the postwar sexual revolution among privileged youths in Japan. The film acts as a manifesto for the sun tribe (taiyozoku) subculture, as well as subsequent youth countercultures (an alternate title for the film is Juvenile Jungle): “Look what the older generation tried to sell us”; “Let’s find our own way by wasting time”; “we live in boring times”; “we’ll make boredom our credo”. And so they do: chasing girls, messing around in boats, endless poker and drinking sessions, and occasional fights to release “pent-up energy”. All soundtracked by regular Kurosawa collaborator Masaru Sato, and avant-garde mainstay Tōru Takemitsu’s hip score that blends jazz with slack key guitar.

Crazed Fruit is paired here with award winning artist and filmmaker Chikako Yamashiro’s Your Voice Came Out Through My Throat. Yamashiro performs the results of audio interviews she conducted with those who lived through the traumatic Battle of Okinawa from WWII.

Japan 2009, dir. Chikako Yamashiro, 8 min, digital presentation w/ English subtitles

Japan 1956, dir. Kō Nakahira, 86 min, digital presentation w/ English subtitles

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