INDEX
Exploring the inner struggles of a former subculture youth
The theme of this film is “vanished youth and its rebirth.” In other words, the narrative trope is very authentic (despite the “uncommon” setting of the adult video industry) and is based on universal themes that have been challenged by numerous films in the past. Therefore, we can easily enter the world of the film and project our own feelings onto it.
As readers with some knowledge of the history of porno film will be well aware, the Japanese porno film industry, which was once led mainly by Nikkatsu Roman Porno, was a world of experimental, “cinematic” films, with many masters who later made it big in non-pornographic films and creators with a strong auteuristic (one might venture to say “ideological”) streak stirring in their hearts. Many experimental and ambitious attempts that can only be described as “cinematic” have been made on film. The films often reflect the mood, in varying shades of gray, of the frustration of the “political season” and the proliferation of subcultures and countercultures, a mood that has been widely shared in Japanese underground culture since the 1970s.
It seems Kayama, the protagonist of this film, is a “former youth” who spent his youth breathing the air of that era and dreamed of a future as a film/theater buff.
There is a symbolic scene in the film. He meets a group of businessmen, who were once apparently his movie/theater friends and goes to see a play by Karagumi, the charismatic underground theater troupe of Juro Karo.
Although he is currently “indulging” in directing adult videos for a living, that is not what he really wants to do. He is not able to shake off such blue thoughts even if he tries, and it’s evident in his everyday work, such as when he talks poetically even in business meetings with clients (his colleagues are more realists ridicule his behavior.
The day after seeing a play by the Karagumi, Kayama rifles through his old luggage at home as if on a sudden impulse. What he discovers is an 8mm film containing a short film he shot in his youth, dedicated to a woman he admired.
