Nippon no akuryo

This film from the Yakuza environment combines "plot," intellectual mystery, and formal free-spiritedness in a way unique to the turn of the 60s and 70s. Essentially, the conventionally constructed story about the interchange of a police officer and a criminal, with all the metaphors about the convergence of "law" and "crime" clearly evident in the foreground, is permeated with ambiguous questions about the identity of both men. Their convergence is not unlike the first mentioned, but mainly due to it, the film acquires a personal and historical dimension that serves as social criticism, as well as the aforementioned metaphor (a different past relationship with the student leftist guerrillas becomes a paradoxical starting point for "both" men, whose life destinies diverged only to intersect again and reveal the true essence of their character). All of this is permeated with audiovisual gems in the form of excellent camera work, playing with sound, and metafictional passages (at the end of the 60s, it may have been an obligation to introduce sarcastic remarks about contemporary society into fiction). Another excellent, albeit not flawless, product of ATG. (26.02.2016)