Eros plus massacre

1969 · Movie · 216 min. · Japan

Erosu Purasu Gyakusatsu is the biography of early 20th-Century socialist (and eventual anarchist) rebel Sakae Osugi, and the three women in his life: Hori Yasuko, his wife; his jealous, second lover, Itsuko Masaoka, a militant feminist (a/k/a Kamichika Ichiko) and Noe Ito, his third lover, an important social critic and novelist. Parallel to Osugi's tale we follow the aimless adventures of two 1960s student radicals, nymphomanic Eiko and generally impotent pyromaniac Wada, exploring the political theories and ideas of free love that Osugi upheld. They fantasize about the Taisho Era, and Yoshida continually blurs the line between fantasy and reality until the two storylines intertwine. Yoshida, like his contemporary Godard, embraces the artifice that is film, playing with time and space.

Direction Yoshishige Yoshida

Cast Mariko Okada · Toshiyuki Hosokawa · Yûko Kusunoki · Etsushi Takahashi · Kazuko Ineno · Daijirô Harada · Kikuo Kaneuchi