Youth on the Screen -- A Night at the Art Theater Shinjuku, 1978

Youth on the Screen -- A Night at the Art Theater Shinjuku, 1978

In 1978, the Art Theater Shinjuku was more than a movie theater. It was a place where experimental films not featured in major movie theaters and masterpieces that had slipped through the cracks of commercialism quietly came to life, and it was a stronghold for those who lived in the interstices of the times. One night, two Japanese films were again projected on the screen at such a theater. One was "Wet Sands of August," which depicted young people running amok on a scorching beach. The other is "Kenka Erejii," about the fights and sorrows of prewar juvenile delinquents. The two works, although from different eras, had the same "tingle of youth.

Wet Sands of August" was directed by Toshihachi Fujita in 1971. In the summer landscape of Shonan, young people wander around, seeking something, resisting something, but unable to go anywhere. The film is a condensed image of youth in the 1970s, when they were swallowed up by the wave of rapid economic growth and lost sight of their place within the framework of society. The theme song, "Wet Sands of August," by Hiroshi Sato, will be passed down through the generations along with the film. As Japan cooled off from the student movement and was gradually swallowed up by reality, the film became the cry of "souls with nowhere else to go," and perhaps it was to revive that lost sense of urgency that it was shown again at the Art Theater Shinjuku in 1978.

The other film, "Kenka Erejii" was created by Seijun Suzuki in 1966. Set in Okayama in the early Showa period (1926-1989), the film depicts the life of the main character, played by Hideki Takahashi, a young man who spends his days fighting, along with the unsettled atmosphere of Japanese society on the verge of war. The violence and impulses of the prewar youth were directly connected to the anti-establishment spirit of the 1960s. This is why this film is not just a period drama, but a reflection of the society of the 1960s. Perhaps there was a certain irony in the fact that this film was screened again in 1978, near the end of the 1970s. The fervor had already cooled and the banner of the student movement had been lowered. Perhaps that is why the youth of the past, who could do nothing but riot, were somewhat nostalgic.

The Japanese film industry in 1978 was at a turning point. In Hollywood, "Star Wars," released the previous year, had taken the world by storm, and in Japan, too, the number of entertainment-oriented films was on the rise. Nagisa Oshima's "Ai no Corrida" was banned due to censorship, and controversy over freedom of expression was raging. In such an era, Art Theater Shinjuku chose films that reflected the rebellion and frustration of the past and put them on the screen. This was no mere nostalgia. The pain of youth will never go away, no matter how the times change. On the screen, they were running, seeking something, resisting something, and running on.

In the sound of the rotating film echoing in the Art Theater Shinjuku, the shadows of those who once ran amok, screamed, and were defeated emerge dimly. The audience stared at the shadows, checking something inside themselves. What had they dreamed of back then? What did they lose and what did they gain? Was there an answer to these questions on the screen, on the beach, in the marks of the fight, soaked with blood and sweat? Or perhaps that is what I went through the door of the movie theater in search of.