Japanese Summer: Double Suicide

Japanese New Wave master and leftist firebrand Oshima sets one of his most despairing portraits of Japanese youth in high summer. When Nejiko encounters Yakuza members digging up weapons in the street, they trap the sex-obsessed young woman in their underground hideaway. Employing ubiquitous violence and an ever-pervasive gun-worship, Oshima’s darkly surreal gangster movie paints a surprisingly poignant portrait of the death drive that characterized so much of ‘60s Japanese culture.