The Warped Ones

This film should be well-known, but isn't. It is in many ways the typical sixties Japanese pop-film, combining the best of nouvelle vague (hand held camera, cool-jazz score, moody, young characters) and the Japanese exploitation cinema (lots of violence, sex and rape). It is unknown, probably because of it's raw content. The main line - girl falls in love with the small time criminal who raped her - isn't to the taste of the western public, but is actually handled in a subtle matter. I've seen this one on Something weird video.

Japanese films in the 50s and 60s were just great. This is one of the best.

A seemingly plot less film driven by relentless shifts in locales in and around Tokyo about an anti-social criminal, his accomplice, who's a little more sociable, and their girlfriend, a prostitute, who, as part of the trio, attracts men with money to rob. The camera work and the running jazz soundtrack add to the overall disassociated sense that makes this similar to 60's New Wave films. It all seems to come together as the film progresses, however. So there is a sense of satisfaction after all if you require a plot. But the impulsive characters and the wild camera that accompanies them are what characterize the film as a bit of a classic.

If someone tells you that the youth of yesterday, were so much better behaved, have them see this film from Japan in 1960.

The film has been compared to Breathless by Godard. The one difference though I would say is in its protagonist. In Breathless, Jean Paul Belmondo's character was kind of cool, and I could see perhaps young people wanting to be like him. The protagonist if any think does not have these qualities. He comes across as crazy, almost psychotic, and a real loser. In many ways his character is more real than Belmondo's. I am not sure, but I think the film might be taking place in Tokyo, but the Japanese city we are presented with is nothing like the Paris of Breathless. It is ugly, you can almost feel the heat, and you wonder how it must even smell.

Like this directors later film, 'Black Sun' He also seems to be criticizing the use of music in the way it might block people from reality. Their is a scene in a bar, where jazz music our protagonist enjoys listening to, when the lead female protagonist, who had been raped by him, stops the music from playing, and he almost goes crazy It results him driving to the ocean with his black friend, (Chico Rolands from Black Sun), and go swimming. It is also a criticism of modern art, and those who supposedly practice it, or admire it. Though at the same time, I wonder the way the director films this movie, especially the stolen auto sequence at the beginning, if this film might be artsy at times in itself, and not know it.

At the same time, hovering over this film, are Westerners, the men who take the women from the Japanese to have for exchange for money. This film I guess is before the big economic boom in Japan, and shows the contempt that Japanese perhaps felt towards the West, especially the US. Their is a line that our protagonist says regarding Jazz, 'the blacks invented it, the whites stole it, and now we have it. We are worse than them.

Chico Roland as Gill is perhaps the one foreigner this film respects. Being black, it is ironic as Japan has been accused of being racist towards blacks, which was somewhat demonstrated in Black Sun. I would like to learn more about Chico Rolands, who he is, and how he began working in Japan. It is regrettable that Criterion on their Eclipse series, didn't supply audio commentaries which might shed some light. Even here on IMDb, their is no info where and when he was born or if he died. I do wish his character was somewhat expanded in the film, and we would know who this character is.

The ending is interesting. I am for a woman's right to choose, but the films ending is the only one I think of that can come close to making an anti-abortion statement, as our protagonist looks up at the sky ceiling of the hospital, as if looking up to god.

The social situation in Rebel Without a Cause looks pretty healthy in comparison to Akira's life in this film. Make no mistake, the director probably didn't want you to find this guy empathetic or romantic regardless of his ingenuity, optimism, or opinions on abstract expressionism. He isn't so much a character with an arc as a force of nature motivating others, a plot device.

Oddly enough, The Warped Ones is really a conservative film even if it doesn't realize it, warning of the breakdown of the family unit, the failure of the reform system, the rise of gang violence, and the perils of Western culture eroding traditional Japanese values. Everyone and everything that comes into contact with the sneering, jazz-deranged lunatic tainted or perverted. Akira merely the flea carrying the plague virus. Gotta give the film credit for not copping out at the end.