© 1984 ART THEATRE GUILD OF JAPAN., LTD. / JINRIKI HIKOKISHA / HIMAWARI THEATRE GROUP, INC. All Rights Reserved.
© 1984 ART THEATRE GUILD OF JAPAN., LTD. / JINRIKI HIKOKISHA / HIMAWARI THEATRE GROUP, INC. All Rights Reserved.
© 1984 ART THEATRE GUILD OF JAPAN., LTD. / JINRIKI HIKOKISHA / HIMAWARI THEATRE GROUP, INC. All Rights Reserved.
Directed by: Shūji Terayama
1984
/ 127 minutes
/ Unclassified 15+
“Come back in a hundred years’ time. After a hundred years you’ll understand.”
Inspired by Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, Terayama’s final and elaborate opus takes place on a remote Okinawan island, where a mythical time law rules and shapes memories, life and even death. Sutekichi and his cousin Su-e love each other, attracting the attention and insults of the superstitious inhabitants of an isolated village beyond time. When Sutekichi murders his rival Daisaku, the couple decides to flee from the village, but Sutekichi is haunted by Daisaku’s ghost and increasingly affected by the unforgiving course of time. In a parallel storyline, green tones and dreamlike filters imprison a young girl in an estranged timeline, where she leads a solitary life due to a dreadful and unforgiving curse. Time and its undeniable irreversibility are the focus of Terayama’s film, which starts with the “burial” of time in its opening sequence, and ends with the completion of this uncanny cycle.
Cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic
National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra
ACMI, Melbourne
Director: Shūji Terayama
Cast: Tsutomu Tokito, Mayumi Ogawa and Yoshio Harada
Genre: Classics
Category: Free, Shuji Terayama
Language(s): Japanese with English subtitles
Format: 16mm b&w & colour
This film is part of JFF 2021’s Special Series which honours prolific and multifaceted artistic career of Shūji Terayama (1935-1983). From the mid 1960s to the early 1970s, Angura (underground) theatre, which imported ‘freak show’ elements, twisted eroticsm and the reinstatement of folklore that had been excluded from modern theatre, reached its zenith in Japan as an anti-establishment movement. Terayama founded the internationally acclaimed theatre troop ‘Tenjō Sajiki’, and was at the centre of this experimental scene. However, his creation was not limited to theatre, and as a filmmaker, poet and social and cultural commentator, he was a leading figure in the ‘expanded cinema’ being explored in post-WWII Japan.
This program presents a handful of the late auteur’s short and feature-length cinematic work showcasing his signature transgressive approach to filmmaking. From dismantling concepts of time, history and myth to visually audacious portrayals of sexual and political revolution–these films are at once unexpectedly beautiful and discomforting.
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