Throw Away Your Books, Let's Go into the Streets

Japanese independent Terayama has a handful of recurrent obsessions, like monstrously tyrannical mothers, flying (as an image of freedom), and the difficulty of losing one's virginity. They're at the heart of this, his first feature, which tells the happy/sad story of an unemployed working class kid struggling towards adulthood. Terayama's extensive experience in Tokyo fringe theatre has led him to distrust 'realism': the movie is framed as a riotous collage of fantasies, digressions, and surrealist shocks, laced with moments of extraordinary pathos and outbursts of quite desirable rock. It's as entertaining and provocative as Ken Russell was in his BBC days.