CRAZED FRUIT

We've got sun, speedboats, jazz records, and nothing at all to believe in. CRAZED FRUIT exploded onto Japanese screens and in one reckless rush helped define the taiyōzoku (“sun tribe”) movement - the mid ‘50s exploration of youth, nihilism & sex that sent older generations into a state of complete moral panic.

Two brothers drift through a seaside summer of parties and pickup romances until a woman fractures the easy rhythm, turning their rivalry into something sharper, uglier and harder to contain. Director Kō Nakahira shoots youth like a contact sport, anticipating the freewheeling invention of the French New Wave while the film’s cool surfaces hide a vicious critique of class, masculinity, and postwar dislocation. A scandal on release, and still electric.

“CRAZED FRUIT takes what could have been a simple exploitation flick about bad teens getting into trouble by the seashore and turns it into a doomed love story fraught with morality. Short, dark, and just a bit cruel, the film uses new wave techniques to fashion a paean to adolescent longing that still manages to resonate almost a half-century later.” - Chris Barsanti, Slant

“Nakahira's sexy time capsule parallels the stateside snowballing of youth culture (James Dean had died less than a year before), but for all of its scandalous transgressions (including boozing, strip poker, gang bangs, and finally, homicide) the movie reflects a deep hurt and despair against a milieu of unrelenting leisure, sun, and affluence. The movie was a New Wave ignition switch, beautifully shot by Shigeyoshi Mine (Seijun Suzuki's DP), scored by Japanese soundtrack pop-king Toru Takemitsu, and written by bestselling novelist Shintaro Ishihara (whose brother Yujiro stars, at the beginning of his Paul Newman–ish career). A forgotten landmark.” - Michael Atkinson, Village Voice