Tenshi no kôkotsu (1972)

Tenshi no kôkotsu: Directed by Kôji Wakamatsu. With Ken Yoshizawa, Rie Yokoyama, Masao Adachi, Michio Akiyama. The movie focuses on the actions of a revolutionary movement.

“This is an excellent film, flawed in the sense that certain aspects of the fictional revolutionary group appear quite caricatured at times but viewed in relation with director Koji Wakamatsuu0026#39;s newest film u0026quot;United Red Armyu0026quot; it can be seen to draw a surprisingly accurate picture of the revolutionary nihilism of the Japanese student activists of the time. Other reviewers have compared the film to Godardu0026#39;s early work such as La Chinoise and admittedly the artistic style is quite similar though less refined, and far from being less politically aware than Godard, Wakamatsu was actually much more realistically cynical in his portrait of armed student activist cells whereas Godardu0026#39;s revolutionary themed films displayed a certain hopeful naiveté in the potential of a largely dogmatic and authoritarian movement which was strongly criticized by his contemporaries in the Situationist International. The writer of this film Masao Adachi was certainly not a pretentious intellectual out to exploit sex and revolutionary pop aesthetic as some critics have inferred here; a closer look at his personal history shows that shortly after writing the screenplay he actually moved to Lebanon to join the real life armed revolutionary group the Japanese Red Army where he remained a committed activist for 28 years up until his arrest in the year 2000. As such the film can be a unique and telling account of his own mentality and the personal motivations which led to joining the JRA, as well as his prior knowledge of the less-than-ideal dynamics of the lifestyle he would be choosing. One must keep in mind that at the time Wakamatsu was expected by producers to be making films in the u0026#39;pinku0026#39; genre which would explain the gratuitous sex scenes that could be seen as offensive or pointless to some but the unique beauty of the film far outweigh itu0026#39;s occasional rough edges. Highly recommended, though not for casual viewers of film u0026quot;for entertainmentu0026#39;s sakeu0026quot; alone.”