By: Charlie Prince
Rating: 2 out of 4 stars
Director: Ko Nakahira
Year: 1956
Starring: Ayuko Fujishiro
Country: Japan (aka Kurutta Kajitsu)

Crazed Fruit epitomizes a little-known genre of film often referred to as the “sun tribe” films – created more or less single-handedly by Shintaro Ishihara who had written the short stories from which the first three sun tribe films were adapted. Together these films painted a picture of a young, unambitious post-war generation that rejected traditional Japanese values, lavishly wasted money and wallowed in idleness and immoral behavior. And by wallowed I mean they went to a lot of wild parties and nightclubs and had a lot of sex. Sure, it’ll end badly, and adults at the time may not have been impressed, but for the most part the kids on screen sure looked like they were having a lot of fun. In between their parties, the kids put forth a virtual manifesto of anti-adult philosophy – they feel disenfranchised, and they’re convinced that even if they tried, there’d be nothing for them to do. So, the rant continues, the only real problem is figuring out how to kill time.

Which is all baloney, of course, as the liner notes to the dvd make clear. Although Shintaro Ishihara claimed the story was based on real experiences he’d had as a young man, the consensus view appears to be that these films captured what older generations feared and projected onto the younger generations more than what they were actually doing (or could realistically afford to do). And the Japanese weren’t the only ones projecting such thoughts – in 1955, only a year before Crazed Fruit, the similarly themed Rebel Without a Cause had been released to great fanfare in the USA. But with blunt depictions of out-of-marriage sex and other goings-on, one can imagine that Crazed Fruit must have been quite shocking at the time – imagine if Larry Clark’s Kids had been unleashed on 1950s America!

Luckily for the viewers, the “you can take your lectures and shove ‘em…” philosophy plays only a backdrop, or rather a premise. And after a round robin of grandstanding early in the film, the director gets on with the main bulk of the plot – a love story between our star, Ayuko Fujishiro, and a girl he meets at the train station on the way to the beach. Ayuko is travelling with his brother, and immediately establishes himself as a naïve kid trying to do good. He’s out of place in the world of his brother’s more delinquent group of friends, who get into fights for fun and spend most of their time with girls that wouldn’t impress many mothers. Ayuko may have stuck to his clean-(not-quite-yet)-shaven ways but for the girl. He’s instantly smitten and when he runs into her again while playing in the ocean, his criticisms fall away and all he wants to know from his brother is how to get the girl. His biggest problem, though, is that his brother’s friends and even his brother are as attracted to her as he is, and without giving too much away let’s just say things get very complicated and quickly.

Okay, so the film was shocking then, but is it interesting today? Only somewhat. The black and white cinematography is gorgeous and the editing is fast-cutting and does a lot to keep things exciting. But it’s not saying much when you realize the 86 minute film has started to drag in the second act.

Clearly part of the appeal of this film was simply to show lots of footage of young, attractive people playing in the water and having fun. You know this because when these scenes roll around the plot just stops for several minutes while we in the audience start mumbling “okay, I get it, they’re water-skiing, let’s move on.” And even beyond that, these days the plot is not all that remarkable. On the one hand, the idea of a young guy trying to figure out how to impress the girl he likes is timeless, and when it’s done well (as it is here), it’s as relevant today as it ever was. Still, when it ended my first thought was “that was interesting” and my second thought was “I really don’t need to see any more sun tribe films.” And a week of chewing it over hasn’t changed my mind.

I’d classify this more as “historically interesting” and “highly competent” than anything else. Without the historical backdrop the film would be competent but unremarkable. With the backdrop it’s worth a spin for serious fans of Japanese film. And it is pretty interesting from a historical perspective — after all, it must have hit a real nerve considering the author of the story was so popular in the aftermath that today he is the multi-term governor of Tokyo! I wouldn’t recommend it to casual foreign film watchers or to anyone who doesn’t have the patience for slow pacing. And if you’ve only got time for one or two of the recent Criterion releases, it’d be hard to recommend this over the recent Seijun Suzuki releases Story of a Prostitute and Gate of Flesh. Overall it’s not on par with the Hitchcock and Kurosawa films that the Criterion Collection often releases, but hats off to them nevertheless for drawing our attention to another – previously hidden – period of Japanese cinema. If you treat the Criterion Collection as a kind of ongoing film school, as I do, this film will not disappoint.

© Charlie Prince

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