Funshutsu kigan – 15-sai no baishunfu (1971)

Funshutsu kigan – 15-sai no baishunfu: Directed by Masao Adachi, Haruhiko Arai. With Aki Sasaki, Hiroshi Saitô, Makiko Kim, Yûji Aoki. A young girl, already a jaded sexual veteran, embarks on an odyssey of self-discovery to find out the true reasons for her dissatisfaction and total desensitization.

“Although it can barely be considered a linear film, a story with a proper u0026quot;beginning, middle and conclusion,u0026quot; u0026quot;Gushing Prayeru0026quot; still manages to tell a story, through avant garde visuals and plain u0026quot;weirdness,u0026quot; a story of truly jaded youth. The four teenage friends who are bent on u0026quot;beating sex,u0026quot; or proving that sex is something that adults place too much importance on, by way of prostituting the youngest member of their group. Yasuko claims to feel nothing, as she embarks on a surreal odyssey of cold, clinical sex with random strangers, mostly older men, and even her high school teacher, who is all too willing to assist the girl in her u0026quot;experimentation.u0026quot; Constant voice-overs describing various teen suicides, combined with some truly eerie, bleak cinematography, lends this film a sad and emotionally hopeless feel. The photography is truly sublime, with itu0026#39;s bleak b/w scenes of the kids wandering through foggy landscapes, cold, abandoned beaches and city streets, always discussing the vapidity of sex and human contact. Certain scenes filmed in garish, shocking color serve to break up the dreamlike atmosphere, and the color symbolizes something perhaps too oblique to recognize. The visuals are really what make u0026quot;Gushing Prayeru0026quot; so special, as well as the strange feeling of melancholy that it creates, when combined with the hypnotic soundtrack, Content-wise, I suppose this can be considered the Japanese answer to Larry Clark, {u0026quot;Ken Park, u0026quot;Kidsu0026quot;), with itu0026#39;s commentary on sexuality among young people. But Clarku0026#39;s films possess NONE of the artistic flourishes and the majestic visual beauty found in this, and other Japanese films. The reviewer that claimed they were u0026quot;boredu0026quot; by this both astounded and saddened me…I feel sorry for people who lack the ability to leave their own reality and be swept into the kind of hypnotic netherworld that is created in films like this. u0026quot;Gushing Prayeru0026quot; was once nearly impossible to find until the recent bluray release, which is also extremely hard to come by. It is presented as a double feature with the equally sublime and similar film u0026quot;Inflatable Sex Dolls of the Wastelands,u0026quot; and both films are recommended to fans of thenJapanese u0026quot;pinku eigau0026quot; genre, as they are true works of art.”