The recent reappraisal and discovery favoring Fukasaku's astonishing yakuza films might hit a stumbling block here, as Fukasaku embarks on something closer to a neorealist drama gone haywire. Five youths come to Tokyo looking for work, with most of the focus kept on Kikuo (Tetsuo Ishidate) and Asao (Gin Maeda), both determined laborers left flailing after job opportunities dry up. The group pools money to buy a dump truck, nicknamed "Independence No. 1," as a means of becoming contractors for hire; however, the world proves less than hospitable to their hopes and dreams.
Though most wouldn't give it a second glance without the director's name in the credits, this strangely-titled drama offers both a valuable time capsule of Japanese culture on the brink of a financial and technological revolution as well as a rough draft for the more dramatic "us vs. them" politics of Fukasaku's later films. The social concerns aren't terribly difficult to read: society's obligation to nurturing its young (a more pertinent subject now than ever), the necessity for accessible education, the dangers of allowing dreams to spin too far out of hand, the inevitable strain which forms during most friendships bonded during childhood. Teachers could certainly do worse than to choose this film as a good example of socially conscious cinema, assuming students can get over the subtitles and exclusive focus on Japanese culture in a time period already becoming strangely alien.
As with most of his contemporaries, Fukasaku demonstrates a comfort with the scope frame that allows each shot to feel fully formed and organic to the flow of the film. The fast pace is maintained through imaginative framing and cutting that allows even stagnant dialogue scenes to establish a staccato rhythm of their own, while the actors are formally arranged with their expressive faces forming aesthetically fascinating tableaux across the horizontal space. Home Vision's DVD captures these compositions quite well thanks to a beautifully maintained print (this one probably didn't spool through too many projectors beforehand), and the optional English subtitles perform a skillful balancing act between narrative clarity for Western viewers and fidelity to the lingo and culture of the original language.
Extras include an 8-minute interview with Fukasaku (who evidently discussed most of his films on-camera shortly before his death), in which he discusses the film's relevance to his own personal code of ethics and its significance as his first genuinely indepdent production, a veritable labor of love. A Fukasaku filmography is also included.
For more information about If You Were Young: Rage, visit Home Vision Entertainment. To order If You Were Young: Rage, go to TCM Shopping.
by Nathaniel Thompson
