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Japan / Akihiko Shiota / 100 min |
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| This is a beautifully crafted and darkly comic exploration of the innocence and perversity in a masochistic high school love affair. The first-time director gets a lot of mileage out of the extreme contrast between the film's placid surface -- that of a lightweight teen romance -- and it's underlying themes of sexual degradation and control. The result brings to mind an Afterschool Special as directed by Luis Bu-uel: "Venus in Furs" set in a high school. It's a film of great restraint and sensitivity, but shot through with a streak of wickedly intelligent humor that tempers the sweetness of idealized romance into something delightfully unwholesome. | ||
| Sunset
5 • {Sept. 8 & 9}
• 10:00 am Monica 4-Plex • {Sept. 15 & 16} • 11:00 am |
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