OBAYASHI: THE KADOKAWA YEARS
The teenage symphonies of Nobuhiko Obayashi (1938-2020) are wound in a melancholy nostalgia for a period indelibly lost to time—that inexpressible gap between adolescence and adulthood. Braiding visually expressive fantasias with striking formal experimentation and pop-art boldness, Obayashi’s idiosyncratic cinematic language produced some of Japan’s most beloved seishun eiga in the 1980s. Captivating generations of filmgoers with his earnest portraits of young love and vanished worldviews, Obayashi’s films were further bolstered by Kadokawa’s innovative tactics of popularizing dreamy pop idols like Hiroko Yakushimaru and Tomoyo Harada. With a career overshadowed abroad by the oddball eccentricity of his electric 1977 debut HOUSE, the 1980s would prove to be the high-water mark of Obayashi’s success.
Films in this Program
Nobuhiko Ôbayashi
Ryôichi Takayanagi
Masami Hasegawa
Miyoko Akaza
90 minutes
Director Nobuhiko Obayashi’s first groundbreaking idol picture is a dazzling mix of psycho special effects and dreamy artifice—a stylistic flair perfected in Obayashi’s debut HOUSE, now utilized for the onset of an alien invasion.
Ordinary schoolgirl Yuka’s (Hiroko Yakushimaru) new term comes to an odd start when she inexplicably stops an accident by using latent psychic powers. Troubled by her newfound abilities, Yuka also senses a strange force start to take hold of the school, with students turning into mind-controlled fascists, patrolling school halls, stifling dissent and mandating the re-education of freethinkers. A psychotronic fantasy forged into a young girl’s destiny to defend the planet, SCHOOL IN THE CROSSHAIRS is a cosmic overload of extraterrestrial tyrants, preternatural powers and Obayashi’s uniquely adroit filmmaking abilities, underlaid with an existential cry for free will.
Ordinary schoolgirl Yuka’s (Hiroko Yakushimaru) new term comes to an odd start when she inexplicably stops an accident by using latent psychic powers. Troubled by her newfound abilities, Yuka also senses a strange force start to take hold of the school, with students turning into mind-controlled fascists, patrolling school halls, stifling dissent and mandating the re-education of freethinkers. A psychotronic fantasy forged into a young girl’s destiny to defend the planet, SCHOOL IN THE CROSSHAIRS is a cosmic overload of extraterrestrial tyrants, preternatural powers and Obayashi’s uniquely adroit filmmaking abilities, underlaid with an existential cry for free will.
Nobuhiko Ôbayashi
104 minutes
Adapting sci-fi author Yasutaka Tsutsui’s famous 1967 novel-of-the-same-name, THE GIRL WHO LEAPT THROUGH TIME cast Tomoyo Harada in her feature film debut, launching the Kadokawa pop idol into superstardom. After suffering a fainting spell in her school’s laboratory, 16-year-old Kazuko Yoshiyama (Harada) begins to experience a strange phenomenon throughout her daily life—temporal leaps backward and forward in time—disorienting her as she relives moments time and time again, as days past return to present. Lost in a sea of time, Kazuko’s desperate pleas to exist in the present are answered, amidst the swell of FX wizardry, musical overtures and, most of all, the anchor of young love. Lyrical, romantic and longing, HOUSE director Nobuhiko Obayashi’s film is a genuine expression of the filmmaker’s reflections on the poetic transcendence of love—cast across the stars for a young girl who lives in tomorrow.
Nobuhiko Ôbayashi
102 minutes
Based on Katsura Morimura’s 1966 best-selling travelogue, Obayashi’s paradise-laden coming-of-age tale is an island retreat to the white sands of New Caledonia. Fulfilling her late father’s (YMO’s Yukihiro Takahashi) dream to take her to “the island closest to heaven,” bookish teen Mari (Tomoyo Harada) ventures solo to the archipelago’s indigo waters in search of this mythic locale. Taking in the island’s sites, Mari journeys off the beaten path, befriending a host of friendly locals in the process, from islander Taro (Ryoichi Takayanagi) to footloose tour guide Yuichi. One of Obayashi’s breeziest features, filled with a sense of old school Hollywood romanticism, THE ISLAND CLOSEST TO HEAVEN forms an affecting portrait of a young girl’s journey to self-discovery and her own piece of heaven deep within.
Nobuhiko Obayashi
90 minutes
Retro-fitted with leather jackets, motorcycles, and a rebellious spirit, this endlessly swoon-worthy ode to forbidden young love traces biker-gang member Ko’s newfound romance with Miyo, the defiant sister of a rival. But as Miyo becomes a biking superstar herself, Ko begins to view her as his masculine rival. She is just as thrilled by the revving of an engine and the risk of death as she is by the promise of romantic love.
With his beloved Kawasaki and Levi jeans, Ko harkens back to classic icons of Americana like James Dean in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE or Marlon Brando in THE WILD ONE. But director Obayashi’s playful experimentation with form feels more of a piece with something like Godard’s PIERROT LE FOU. One of the true gems of Obayashi’s ‘80s filmography, HIS MOTORBIKE, HER ISLAND is a soaringly avant-garde outlaw romance and a loving homage to American biker culture, collecting the detritus of everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Kenneth Anger along the highway.
“An absolutely phenomenal film about the things we like to remember and the things we can't help but forget. Time and memory, the past and present, dream and reality flowing in and out of each other, flirting at the edges, eventually sharing the same frame. Every time I watch a new Obayashi film I feel invigorated, like I have this fresh love for the medium. I don't think we deserve a filmmaker as good as him.” - Esther Rosenfield
“A teenage symphony to God. The movie respirates with color and youth, equal parts steamy and moving. HIS MOTORBIKE, HER ISLAND is Obayashi’s peak.” - Kyle Gardner
With his beloved Kawasaki and Levi jeans, Ko harkens back to classic icons of Americana like James Dean in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE or Marlon Brando in THE WILD ONE. But director Obayashi’s playful experimentation with form feels more of a piece with something like Godard’s PIERROT LE FOU. One of the true gems of Obayashi’s ‘80s filmography, HIS MOTORBIKE, HER ISLAND is a soaringly avant-garde outlaw romance and a loving homage to American biker culture, collecting the detritus of everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Kenneth Anger along the highway.
“An absolutely phenomenal film about the things we like to remember and the things we can't help but forget. Time and memory, the past and present, dream and reality flowing in and out of each other, flirting at the edges, eventually sharing the same frame. Every time I watch a new Obayashi film I feel invigorated, like I have this fresh love for the medium. I don't think we deserve a filmmaker as good as him.” - Esther Rosenfield
“A teenage symphony to God. The movie respirates with color and youth, equal parts steamy and moving. HIS MOTORBIKE, HER ISLAND is Obayashi’s peak.” - Kyle Gardner
