Violence at Noon / Diary of a Shinjuku Thief

VIOLENCE AT NOON 1966, Janus Films, 99 min. After a youth commune collapses, its members driven to despair or suicide, a psychotic drifter encounters a co-worker from the collective who is now working as a maid. She falls under his spell, becoming his witness, abettor and protector as he repeatedly rapes and murders, with the police close on his trail. In Japanese with English subtitles.

DIARY OF A SHINJUKU THIEF, 1968, Oshima Productions, 94 min. A young man is chased by a crowd in Shinjuku, Tokyo’s center of youth culture and strips to a loincloth to show that he is hiding nothing, only a big rose tattoo over his navel. He inspires an onlooker, called Birdey Hilltop, to his own larceny in a local bookstore, and soon Birdey and his girlfriend Umeko, a counterfeit clerk at the store – another instance of imposture in Oshima – are led into “the labyrinth of the world of sex.” Theft, sex and spectacle ensue as the two attempt to find their place in the world.