Burst City

First off, anyone expecting a rich, straightforward narrative, be warned. This is a document - not a documentary - of the Japanese punk scene in the early '80s, and director Shogo Ishii captures that punk spirit in every aspect of his filmmaking: it's gritty, chaotic, and occasionally disorienting. It's also fantastic.

The story itself - a tale of protest against the nuclear exploitation of a slum city - is interesting enough, but ultimately secondary to the atmosphere and spectacle of the bands and fans that make up the cast of Burst City. Ishii brings the feel of a great punk show to the many crowd scenes, and the feeling bleeds through to the entire film. Ishii's a capable and original director who's inspired countless cult favorites like Tsukamoto and Miike, and watching Burst City, it's easy to see why.

The central band's performances, brought to life by members of seminal Japanese punk acts The Rockers and The Roosters, are thrilling to watch. The real highlights for me, though, were the (literally) show-stealing antics of Michiro Endo and his band The Stalin, who essentially cameo as themselves - a violent, messy, profane and captivating rival band. It's an absolute must-see film for any fans of The Stalin.

The DVD itself is nice enough, with video quality as good as you could reasonably expect from a 1982 punk film. The extras have a good bit of written history on the film and its roots, and a decent photo gallery. Also included is a handful of theatrical trailers, including one for Burst City itself and another for Shogo Ishii's also-excellent Electric Dragon 80000V. There's a little leaflet insert with an interesting extended blurb about Ishii and Burst City, too.

I had to take off a star because, curiously, not all of the dialogue and lyrics are subtitled. There's no real loss to the story or the experience, but it's noticeable; an unfortunate drawback, but it's nice to see this film released stateside at all.

I can't believe I'm just now seeing this film. It's pure punk anarchy. Chaos reigns throughout the film. The plot barely holds the thing together; the movie is mostly a post-apocalyptic (sorta) excuse for punk bands to fight against each other and against the cops, and for random work gangs to fight against some sort of yakuza gang. Watching this film is like listening to noise industrial music with segments of punk rawk. It's an assault on the senses, and a beautiful statement of mindless anarchy.

"Burst City" is a Japanese anti-nuclear punk rock movie that features no protagonists or antagonists inasmuch as everyone is equally insufferable. The film is set in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo of the future (although it was made in 1982 and prominently features a 1980 Camaro.) At first it seems like it will simply be the story of "Special Protected Waterway District 304," but unfortunately that is not so. One characteristic of the film that quickly becomes obvious is that every scene is about ten times longer than it needs to be to make the point. I was hoping that was not going to be a trend watching the 15 minute (or so) opening credits while bad electronic music plays over the endless scenes of Japanese highways (harkening back to John Cage's abysmal "HPSCHD.") Little could I guess that this would be the best 15 minutes of the movie.

The movie is about punk rock and anti-authoritarianism, fundamentally. The anti-nuclear component is not really a priority in the "plot." It would be difficult to imagine even hardened nuclear power foes like Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt supporting the youth in this film, who are narcissistic, lazy, destructive, and violent slackers. The film attempts to be a statement of anti-conformity and youthful rebelliousness, but do not be deceived: it is merely an excuse for bedlam. If you like punk rock you may like some of the music, though the subtitled translations are frequently amusing with lyrics bemoaning that "everything is so abundant" and the like. I was especially fond of the song recalling an alien invasion of an all night supermarket, though decidedly less fond of the multitudinous songs that featured gastrointestinal byproducts as lyric fodder. The song that compared the singer's refrigerator to a toilet was especially poor, although well within the scope of belief.

The film features various gangs beating the tar out of each other, with appropriate police intervention on occasion. I came to think of it as a merger of the two movies "Mad Max" and "Grease" as interpreted by the Ramones in Japanese. In this film anything and everything are excuses to fight; the characters are all interchangeable (except the guy with the helmet). Forced labor is featured and prized: don't miss the special and unexplained guest appearance by the human aardvark, who burrows a hole with his hands. (?) There is also an extremely unnecessary and gruesome subplot about prostitution that could have and should have been completely dispensed with. That is an object lesson for the film at large, though: it runs for almost two hours, but is really a collection of vignettes only tenuously connected. There is maybe 30 minutes worth of material here.

All I really wanted in the end was an entirely different type of nuclear reaction to be featured to end the suffering (mine) involved. Instead, in the end there is a totally gratuitous electrocution that is taken amazingly in stride by the rest of the band members and the audience. (The special effect is hilarious, though.)

I looked up the word "insufferable" in an English-Japanese dictionary after viewing this film only to discover that there is no direct translation of the word in the Japanese language. My guess is that in future editions the definition will simply say "See 'Burst City'".

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