MASAKI KOBAYASHI: AGAINST THE SYSTEM - DVD-ECLIPSE SERIES 38 (CRITERION)

Details

• Genre: Drama
• Plot: One of the most important filmmakers to emerge from Japan;s cinematic golden age, Masaki Kobayashi is remembered in great part today for his three-part epic The Human Condition (1959-61), but that is just one of the blistering films he made in a career dedicated to the blistering films he made in a career dedicated to criticizing his country's rigid social and political orders. He first found his voice–rebellious, angry, engaged–in the fifties, following his life-altering experiences as a soldier in World War II; the four films collected here, made dring the same period as The Human Condition, reflect Kobayashi's coming into his own as an artist. He fought to get these powerful dramas made at a studio more oriented at the time toward quiet family melodrams, and they are unforgettable depictions of a postwar Japan troubled by identity crises and moral corruption on scales both intimate and institutional.; ; THE THICK-WALLED ROOM (Kabe atsuki heya); Masaki Kobayashi made waves with this excoriating drama about low-ranking Japanese soldiers imprisoned for war crimes.; ; I WILL BUY YOU (Anatka kaimasu); A basketball scout will do anything to land a talented college-age recuit in this take on the seamy underside of professional sports.; ; BLACK RIVER (Kuroi kawa); Against a backdrop of social disintigration, a mild-mannered student falls for a girl pursued by a malevolent gangster.; ; THE INHERITANCE (Karami-ai); A family of feeble moral fiber and one resourceful secretary fight over the money of a dying patriarch.; ; ;
• Runtime: 7:20
• Media Format: Movie