Capital Celluloid 2021 — Day 123: Thu Sep 16

Nanami: The Inferno of First Love (Hani, 1968): Barbican Cinema, 6pm

This rare 16mm presentation is part of the Japanese and Avent-Garde Film Festival season at the Barbican Cinema. You can find full details here.

Chicago Reader review:
A teenage boy and girl (played by 19-year-old nonprofessionals) have a nude encounter in which the boy is unable to function sexually, and traumatic flashbacks follow as they recount their lives to each other. The boy was molested as a child, and the girl performs nude shows, some including S-M, in the chaotic Shinjuku district of Tokyo. Stylistically disjointed, Susumu Hani’s 1968 film lurches from silhouettes of S-M performers to grainy flashbacks to noirish scenes of the present, providing an effective if sometimes disorienting portrait of two young people struggling to find themselves in an almost valueless world.
Fred Camper

Here is the trailer.

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