Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pagePigs and Battleships (1961)
Director: Shohei Imamura
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Imamura's fifth film kicks off with hordes of uniformed American sailors running rampant through the neon lit streets of Yokosuka, and closes with a stampede of pigs doing much the same: a rather wonderful bracketing device pinpointing the twin poles of the slum town's economic life. Kinta (Nagato), like every other young punk in town, has his heart set on making a favourable impression with the gangsters, whose main racket involves exploiting the local pig trade. By contrast his girlfriend Haruko (Yoshimura) is one of the few women to think twice about prostituting herself to the steady influx of Yanks flush with money and booze. She wants them both to quit town while they can. Around this familiar set-up Imamura spins a hectic, furious portrait of a melting pot of deadend low-lives, which, with its restless tracking and panning shots, high contrast 'Scope photography and gothic secondary characters, recalls the corrupt, sweaty universe captured by Welles in Touch of Evil. Imamura plays fast and loose with the plotting (he likes his films 'messy'), but if some of the finer narrative details are opaque, the over-arching vision of life as a meat market is abundantly clear.Author: NB
Cast & crew
Director: Shohei Imamura
Cast: Hiroyuki Nagato, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Masao Mishima full cast
Duration: 108 mins
Top Stories
Ben Drew aka Plan B interview
The singer, rapper and now film director discusses his debut film 'Ill Manors'
Cannes Film Festival 2012: final round-up
Dave Calhoun draws the curtain on the world's greatest film festival
Ridley Scott interview
Director Ridley Scott tells Cath Clarke why he's making a science fiction comeback
What do you think?
Post your review now