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Hanasareru Gang

Directed by Nobuhiro Suwa.
Japan, 1984, DCP, color, 85 min.
Japanese with English subtitles.
DCP source: Pia Film Festival

If the French nouvelle vague is an implicit reference point, or at least shares a certain sensibility with the films in this lineup—many of which feel like uninhibited, no-holds-barred experiments very loosely inspired by Truffaut, Rivette or Godard—then Hanasareru Gang is the only open homage to the French filmmakers. Genre elements such as gangsters, a suitcase full of money, and a girl who joins them for their misadventures build a kaleidoscopic game of filmic conventions. Always self-aware and willing to slip back and forth between storytelling and self-reflexivity with a light touch, Hanasareru Gang is easily recognizable as a complex yet passionately energetic variation of Suwa’s more austere later films. One of the directors most explicitly influenced by French cinema, Suwa is best known outside of Japan for his H Story (2001), a film that starred Beatrice Dalle and was a remake of sorts of—and meta-filmic reflection on—Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima Mon Amour.

Part of film series

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Hachimiri Madness! Japanese Independents from the Punk Years

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Harvard Undergraduate Cinematheque

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Albert Serra, or Cinematic Time Regained

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Wang Bing’s Youth Trilogy

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The Shochiku Centennial Collection

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Planet at 50

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The Yugoslav Junction Continues!

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Theo Anthony, Subject to Review

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The Ideal Cinematheque of the Outskirts of the World

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From the collection – Satyajit Ray