GOD SPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR

In the 1970s, director Mitsuo Yanagimachi embedded himself directly into the Black Emperors, one of Japan’s biggest, most violent bōsōzoku biker gangs. Filming in grainy 16mm — often at night, mounted onto a speeding motorcycle, using only street lamps and headlights — he creates a visceral sense of total rebellion while exploring the Emperors’ rigid, fascistic organizing structure. It’s a both a raw, unfiltered look into the lives of impoverished, restless youth who find freedom in speed and brotherhood and a portrait of drift where that same freedom is nothing but a series of bad options. Unpolished, confrontational, and eerily quiet between bursts of motion, GOD SPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR is a cornerstone of Japan’s post–New Wave hangover where the road goes on and nothing really opens up.

“It all comes down to reality. The heightened Bōsōzoku lives of these rebellious teens is contrasted by their less than enthusiastic reality: their apartments are cramped, their families are struggling, they have no money and no means to live a better life. Their lives are not as glamorous or edgy as their motorbikes and their days are spent filling themselves with cup noodles and unfulfilled dreams. If that feeling hits the viewer a little too close to home, it is because it is where most of us have lived as teenagers trying to navigate the world by ourselves. Yanagimachi does not flinch in keeping it real and that is why the lingering sense of loneliness, aimlessness, and pointless rush sticks with the audience far longer than they like.” - Anushka Roy Choudhury

“Feels so authentic, genuinely punk, it's inspiring even at its lowest moments.” - Lydia Roberts