Lets look at the basic story: Jiro is a clean cut, hard working student looking to please his mother, who is having an affair with a business man. Dismissing his mother's situation as prostitution, he falls in further with a crowd of proud criminals and goes down the bad path. Also intertwining sub plots including a young woman trying to raise money for an abortion to not burden her living partner and Jiro's new girlfriend who is involved with a gangster.
Certainly at first glance of a summary like this, one envisions a life time channel movie, or something in the vain of MST3K fodder like "I Accuse My Parents". What ultimately saves this can be summed up thusly: Seijun Suzuki. I won't say this is his best movie necessarily, but it probably displays his strength best, making movies that revel in absurdity while not becoming flat out comedies.
It's to Suzuki's credit that many of these scenes come off less laughable than they should, while others are played up to such an extent you can only laugh, but all of it feels intentional and calculated. Characters will completely shift in behavior at points, and it's a testament to Suzuki we can still take anything seriously in all of this.
One particularly brilliant scene has a man trying to make a solemn, heart felt confession to someone, the kind of performance one would expect in a serious drama, while the person he's speaking to is making out with his girlfriend and talking in a snappy, Godardian fashion. A complete contrast of moods that seems like the actors are in two completely different movies, and yes it inspires a few laughs while still eliciting sympathy, and is brilliant in how it conveys the utter dissonance and break down in communication between them.
I mentioned Godard earlier, and certainly more than a few touches of "Breathless" can be seen here. There are a few jump cuts near identical to those in "Breathless", and towards the end Jiro even begins talking a little like Michel, however there's enough original flourish here. The camera work is sweeping and complimentary to this hyper paced film of only 70 minutes, weaving through plot points gracefully. There's a lot of content in this seventy minute picture but it is never rushed.
Well worth a look.
