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Blue Spring (Aoi haru) - 2001
Directed by Toshiaki Toyoda
Written by Toshiaki Toyoda
Based on manga by Taiyô Matsumoto
Starring Ryûhei Matsuda, Hirofumi Arai, Sôsuke Takaoka
Yûta Yamazaki & Shûgo Oshinari
While certainly not violent, my high school days felt a little bit like the Japanese boys in Toshiaki Toyoda's Blue Spring - a sense of alienation, uncertainty and rebelliousness and it always evokes a wave of nostalgia, as it certainly did for Toyoda. Although based on the manga of the same name, the director (who also adapted) also included incidents which had happened to him in high school - and that's what a good portion of Blue Spring feels like. Incidents. It's not all neatly tied together, and somewhat episodic in nature when not dealing directly with the film's two chief characters, Kujo (Ryuhei Matsuda) and Aoki (Hirofumi Arai). A couple of friends who turn enemies before the film is finished, furnishing it with an element of tragedy.
Kujo and Aoki are part of a group of friends that include Yukio (Sousuke Takaoka), Yoshimura (Shugo Oshinari) and Ota (Yuta Yamazaki). As far as leadership is concerned, of the gang that rules supreme over the school (including teachers), a clapping game is played to test the mettle of whomever wins it. Contestants hold on to a railing above what would be a fatal drop, clap their hands a number of times, and grab the railing again. Too slow and you'll miss the railing, and be on your way down. Kujo challenges, and wins leadership, but he doesn't treat it seriously which leads to conflict with his once-best friend, Aoki. This conflict affects Aoki's outlook on life, changing him in negative ways, darkening his personality and causing mental health problems. In a high school as dysfunctional as Asashi High, it's sink or swim, and Aoki, not to mention a few others, are drowning.
Asashi High in Tokyo is a filthy, run-down place with graffiti covering the walls on the inside and very few staff members to be seen - a depressing place made even more unpalatable by the students which roam it's halls with baseball bats ready to break the bones of those unfortunate enough to have displeased gang leaders and misanthropes. If a career in baseball is looking unlikely, there's always the Yakuza waiting impatiently for their next henchman while driving along the bordering streets. It's comforting to know though, that if a student does go so far as to stab another classmate to death they will finally, at long last, get into trouble. On the lighter side, you might just find yourself wet through when someone pours a bucket of water on you while you're in a toilet cubicle.
When Toyoda found a vacant school to shoot on location, he actually needed to have it roughed up and painted with graffiti, which had to be stripped and cleaned at the end of the filming schedule - a difficult task for those to whom it was given. It gives this film a sense of reality anyway. Many of the young Japanese actors (most, I feel) try to project a sense of 'toughness' and bravado - although a few are obviously more suited to being followers and gofers. In this film we don't bother much with adult authority or the teachers, and never once get to meet the parents of any of these boys. Instead Blue Spring presents us with a self-contained world - the school as the whole universe, which we never leave during the duration of the film.
There are some nice shots - including a spectacular 16 hour time-lapse one of Hirofumi Arai's Aoki standing at the railing at the top of the building from 4pm to 8pm the next morning without changing his stance - a real-life achievement from the actor which the director wasn't at all confident he could pull off, and presented to Arai before he signed on to do the film. The colour blue features prominently (as you'd expect) signaling inexperience, but with "Blue Spring" also, in Japanese, meaning "youth" or "best time of life". I notice that there's a preponderance of black as well, usually signifying anger, frustration, death and rage. Cinematographer Norimichi Kasamatsu was well experienced - but for editor Mototaka Kusakabe, Blue Spring was his first film.
The soundtrack contains a preponderance of Thee Michelle Gun Elephant songs, and this band appears to have been something of an obsession for Toshiaki Toyoda at the time. The film actually had wall-to-wall Thee Michelle Gun Elephant in it's soundtrack before producers stepped in and literally forced Toyoda to use different music during segments of the film. The music isn't bad, and finishing with the song "Drop" - a real grungy and almost angry, defiant shout of a song, fits the movie perfectly and comes at just the right time. Although in Japanese and unintelligible to me from just listening to it, the lyrics about wandering from day into night have an added sense of meaning considering the way the film ends.
I thought this film was okay, but I didn't get passionately invested in it, and I could have done without so much of it taking place in filthy toilet cubicles and featuring, lets say, "human waste product" as much as it did. I liked aspects, and the metaphorical use of flowers in the school's garden was interesting. The photograph at the start, of all of our principal players together as a tightly bonded group, gave me a sense that these kids were closer than what they ended up being - but a lot of the film is involved with the establishment of a kind of pecking order, which drives multiple wedges between these friends. In the end there wasn't much camaraderie between these kids, although by the time the credits are ready to roll, you feel that Kujo will always sadly regret turning Aoki from friend to enemy.
Do the power games and oppression at the high school relate to the politics of the adult world? Are these kids simply quick learners when it comes to iron-fisted rule, and how it safeguards those at the top? The perks of being a dictatorial leader? The fact that when you become a dictatorial leader, you also become friendless? Perhaps this is the inevitable state of a society without any real hope for the future, as evidenced by the fact that these kids seem to have little hope for one. Nobody seems to care - not their parents or their teachers, and what we have is humanity reduced to it's natural, brutal state. Swinging clubs at each other to make sure everyone stays in their place. Everything that cannot blossom is destined to remain dead, and trod on, and repressed - like these kids' and their optimistic hope for their future.
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Remember - everything has an ending except hope, and sausages - they have two.
We miss you Takoma
We miss you Takoma
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Loved hearing her sing and I loved the look and feel of the swanky jazz and dance clubs that we see. 
