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2023-10-12 Pink Films from Scarecrow

I visited Scarecrow last night and picked up a bunch of old Japanese Pink Films. I watched two of them - Raigyo (1997) and Flower and Snake(1974) - that happened to give a pretty interesting cross section.

Raigyo was very moody and atmospheric, with only a couple of sex scenes, all fairly short and character-driven. By minutes spent, less of the movie is spent on sex scenes than on moody scenes of characters standing in silence. The meat of the thing is the (fairly edgy and nihilistic) murder-thriller plot.

Flower and Snake, on the other hand, is a lot more overtly pornographic - the sex scenes start earlier, last longer, and while they do fit into the strange post-WWII PTSD plot, are clearly more mercenary.

This definitely lines up with what Wikipedia says about the timeline: with the advent of adult home videos, pink films' erotic niche was somewhat left behind, and it became more of a home for "auteurs."

Raigyo did have a lot of pretty conceptual camera work, including some fun parallelled shots through large indoor windows, and great use of the scenery of the quiet town the movie takes place in. I'm definitely interested in seeing more of the director Takahisa Zeze's work.

I've also been reading Banana Yoshimoto's Hardboiled and Hard Luck. This is my first book of hers that I've read and I like the sense of atmosphere she builds. The plot of Hardboiled is pretty simple so far, but the characters are well-sketched and it's developing a lot of interesting themes about the nature of love, vulnerability and like how much one can really "know" another person.