I gather that "pink cinema" practically saved the Japanese film industry in the early 60s by introducing low-budget soft-porn movies that were surprising, or even shocking, to Japanese audiences and were lucrative. The budgets for these films were tiny, by any standard. The only requirement was lots of nudity and sex. Within these strictures the movie-makers were free to do what they wanted.
Sometimes that kind of license leads to a certain stylishness, as it did with Randolph Scott's Ranown westerns, and Val Lewton's minimalist horror films at RKO.
I've seen two examples of pink cinema now and would like to recommend them but I can't. Both seem like strikeouts.
Without going into it in too much detail, I'll give an example. A Japanese guy is (apparently) riddled with guilt for a crime he and his partner committed, for which he served several years in prison. The crime involved a rape.
The guy sees an ad the victim has posted. She now gives private baths. He visits her establishment. She doesn't recognize him as the man who raped her. He lies there sullenly while she soaps him up and slides her nude body around on top of his. I would like to direct your attention to the sound that accompanies this ablution. It doesn't sound like two soapy bodies rubbing against one another. It sounds like someone trying to stir a pot of molasses with a wooden spoon. Or somebody crinkling sheets of stiff cellophane in his palms.
I admit this is a small thing, but that's precisely my point. It would have been so EASY to avoid. It's distracting, irritating, and cheap. It belongs in the same shoe box as the shot in which the heroine looks into a mirror to fluff herself up, only instead of looking at her own image she's staring directly into the camera, because the mirror is at an angle to her face. A pointless and jarring discordance.
The photography doesn't help. It's blurry, dark, and lurid with dank colors.
The acting isn't bad, and some effort went into the script -- the story of a failed attempt at redemption. Yet it's clumsily put together, with a lack of subtlety whose presence would not have affected box office returns much one way or the other.
We know its possible to make engaging films for minuscule amounts of money because it's been done before. "The Littlest Fugitive," for instance. This film doesn't clear the bar, but there may be other examples of pink cinema out there that do.
Sometimes that kind of license leads to a certain stylishness, as it did with Randolph Scott's Ranown westerns, and Val Lewton's minimalist horror films at RKO.
I've seen two examples of pink cinema now and would like to recommend them but I can't. Both seem like strikeouts.
Without going into it in too much detail, I'll give an example. A Japanese guy is (apparently) riddled with guilt for a crime he and his partner committed, for which he served several years in prison. The crime involved a rape.
The guy sees an ad the victim has posted. She now gives private baths. He visits her establishment. She doesn't recognize him as the man who raped her. He lies there sullenly while she soaps him up and slides her nude body around on top of his. I would like to direct your attention to the sound that accompanies this ablution. It doesn't sound like two soapy bodies rubbing against one another. It sounds like someone trying to stir a pot of molasses with a wooden spoon. Or somebody crinkling sheets of stiff cellophane in his palms.
I admit this is a small thing, but that's precisely my point. It would have been so EASY to avoid. It's distracting, irritating, and cheap. It belongs in the same shoe box as the shot in which the heroine looks into a mirror to fluff herself up, only instead of looking at her own image she's staring directly into the camera, because the mirror is at an angle to her face. A pointless and jarring discordance.
The photography doesn't help. It's blurry, dark, and lurid with dank colors.
The acting isn't bad, and some effort went into the script -- the story of a failed attempt at redemption. Yet it's clumsily put together, with a lack of subtlety whose presence would not have affected box office returns much one way or the other.
We know its possible to make engaging films for minuscule amounts of money because it's been done before. "The Littlest Fugitive," for instance. This film doesn't clear the bar, but there may be other examples of pink cinema out there that do.