20th Century Nostalgia

[Aaron Gerow]

I was also not necessarily impressed by this film, although it does serve 
as a kind of textbook about issues of personal cinema in contemporary 
Japan.  But those who do talk seriously about the film, like Yomota 
Inuhiko, stress its relation to the other work of Hara Masato, who is one 
of the more important personal/experimental filmmakers since the 1960s.  
(20th Century is his first commercial feature, even though he has been 
making films since 1968.)  Yomota, for instance, stresses the fact that 
the basic plot of the film strongly resembles that of Oshima Nagisa's The 
Man Who Left His Will on Film (1970), the screenplay of which was 
actually co-written by Hara (under his old name Masataka).  In a sense, 
20th Century is Hara's rewriting of Oshima's film taking into account a 
changing youth culture, 30 years of history, and the new technology of 
video.

Aaron Gerow
Associate Professor
International Student Center
Yokohama National University
79-1 Tokiwadai
Hodogaya-ku, Yokohama 240-8501
JAPAN
E-mail: gerow at ynu.ac.jp
Phone: 81-45-339-3170
Fax: 81-45-339-3171