Derek Malcolm recommends: East Side Stories: Japanese Cinema Depicting the Lives of Youth

The Japanese Foundation’s often surprising week of Youth Films, mostly taken from the last decade
31 January 2014

Few Japanese movies reach commercial screens in London, which is a good reason to note the Japanese Foundation’s often surprising week of Youth Films, mostly taken from the last decade and showing at the ICA from tonight.

Films about young people are almost a separate genre in Japan, taking in orthodox drama, experimental work and anime. In the Thirties, Forties and Fifties classical directors such as the great Yasujiro Ozu worked on what were called “college films” and the tradition was followed more radically by directors including Nagisa Oshima during the period of the Japanese New Wave (late Fifties to early Seventies), which rejected Hollywood and classical orthodoxy.

The popular tradition continues today, still sometimes influenced by Hollywood but usually made in a totally different manner. Tonight, director Keiichi Hara presents Colorful, his latest anime feature about a dejected spirit who inhabits the body of an unsettled teenager and discovers that youth has as many troubles as he has.

Tomorrow there is Sorry, a charming story of a young boy falling in love for the first time, and on Sunday Love Strikes! is a comedy that examines various youth sub-cultures with music and anime. Two films - The Drudgery Train (showing on February 4) The Story of Yonosuke (February 6) - are about students trying to survive in the big city.

The most powerful film on the programme is Yoshishige Yoshida’s 18 Who Cause A Storm (showing tomorrow) in which a young man is put in charge of a group of rebellious teenagers working on a ship-building site. Yoshida made Eros Plus Massacre, a seminal film from the Japanese New Wave and sets his film in the same period of the unsettled sixties.

Some of the films are followed by Q&As with the directors and actors.

East Side Stories is at the ICA, SW1 (020 7930 3647, ica.org.uk) until Feb 6.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in