Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (1969) User Reviews

'Shinjuku Burglar'

[bazarov24 · 6/10 · 31 August 2006]

Except for "Boy," the work of Nagiso Osima (born 1932) is scarcely known around the West — though the film histories place him among the most important younger Japanese directors, regularly comparing him to Jean-Luc Godard, his near contemporary and an obvious influence on his style. I should say that Oshima is certainly influenced by Godard—especially in medium-distance shots. In long shots he is more often influenced by Michelangelo Antonioni. But in close-ups and in almost everything else he seems firmly and not too appealingly himself.

The burglar (Tadanori Yokoo), who, under duress, admits that his name is Birdey Hilltop, steals books — good books—from a Tokyo bookstore. A girl (Rie Yokoyama), who says she's a clerk, catches him and turns him in to the boss. The boss doesn't care about the thefts and doesn't really believe the girl works for him, but he takes an interest in the young people anyway and attempts to straighten out their sex lives.

That is what the movie is all about—straightening out their sex lives—though incidentally it touches on a great many other things as well. For example, just as Birdey and his girl finally do straighten out their sex lives (she simulates hara kari using a little of her own blood, which happens to be the key to Birdey's heart) all hell breaks loose with a student riot in the Shinjuku section of Tokyo. That's how the movie ends.

But before it ends, Birdey and his girl have been through a variety of bizarre experiences that range from visits to an analyst (who analyzes transference of sexual roles and wants them to undress), to imitation rape (which turns out to be real when some onlookers get their signals crossed), to participation in a dramatic happening produced in a style that seems to combine traditional noh with guerrilla theater.

Some of the experiences are funny, as when the would-be lovers go to a pleasure house where attendants on the roof manufacture a rain shower timed just to the moment of passionate surrender. More often, the experiences are very dull, with an air of having been produced only for purposes of demonstration. Like the more recent Godard, Oshima's is a highly didactic cinema. But unlike any Godard, it seems imprecise—and possibly less concerned with the quality of its thoughts than the momentary effectiveness of its images. The result is a high-powered sterility in the midst of much energetic busyness.

"Diary of a Shinjuku Burglar" has been photographed mostly in black and white, occasionally in color, and always with the sort of modish disjointedness that makes of the shock cut what the terrible zoom lens is to a different and less intellectual practice in movie making. I shouldn't want to dismiss Oshima on so little evidence, but I don't see that he has brought very much to this film beyond a skillful eye, a close familiarity with his betters and a lot of not very interesting ambitions.

A Nutshell Review: Diary of a Shinjuku Thief

[DICK STEEL · 6/10 · 21 August 2010]

I was wondering which of the films will prove to be the one big alternative, experimental experience, and to my surprise it had to be Nagisa Oshima's Diary of a Shinjuku Thief. As the festival director Gavin Liu had explained in the pre-screening introduction, this is a rare screening of the film, and the owner of Kinokuniya bookstores is actually the man playing the Kinokuniya store manager in the film, as are many of the performers playing themselves, being non-actors going their own real thing as captured on celluloid.

It's a treat all right, but I suppose it's an acquired taste that I still haven't cultivated. One of the draws to this film is because I'm curious to see how Shinjuku, the hotbed area in Tokyo where ail things youth and underground take place, looked like in the swinging 60s, having been there in two consecutive years already. The film opens with a crazy introduction of a man forced by a group to strip down to his underwear (a rather flimsy one that barely protects his modesty), being accused of stealing some pipes, before the group start to cower when they see his tattoo. Then we're thrust into the narrative proper that deals with the titular bookstore thief Torio, cheekily nicknamed Birdtop (Tadanori Yokoo), as the camera follows behind him through the extremely packed Kino bookstore - where you can't help that people around just happen to gaze into the camera – until he gets nabbed by the eagle eyed salesgirl Umeko (Rie Yokoyama) for taking a book out without paying for it.

In fact he does so twice, and besides to experience the high from pinching things, a challenge he throws to Umeko later on in the story, I suspect he does so because he's got quite the hots for Umeko, an attractive though complicated lady, that even the store manager probably sensed something brewing between them, and offering not to report Birdtop to the cops, but to gift him some books as well as cash for both Birdtop and Umeko to spend. That essentially launches them into having some time off if you will to visit everything else that Oshima's intended to put into his film, with 4 different writers that will inevitably lead to a kaleidoscope of ideas, bringing forth the massive melting pot of different folks with different strokes.

Presented in sections split by intertitles that tell the time (worldwide to local, and other nuggets of trivia such as the weather condition at the time) the film is almost documentary in nature come this point, and interchanges between black and white and colour which I still have to figure out why, other than to not miss out in capturing the vibrant colours present in particular performances and scenes. There's a visit to a sexologist whose area of research may challenge Kinsey's, and a talking heads styled interview with a group that's focused predominantly on sex, where it gets expressed verbally, and later on, having numerous sex scenes which had to justify its R21 rating in Singapore.

Like the earlier films, this one is also rich in music such as Juro Kara coming on at every opportunity with a guitar, though the tunes were not quite up my alley. It's like a musical of sorts at times when characters inexplicably appears and break out into music. And while the story becomes more perplexing, I gave up trying to piece the narrative together since it was clearly abandoned to showcase various performances available at that era in Shinjuku. In that respect this film will work relatively well in capturing things that will inevitably be lost as time goes by, and for the modern audience to experience what it was like then, especially those vaudeville theatre styled acts. The other scene I thought I enjoyed until it proved to be outstaying its welcome involved Umeko walking by shelves of books, and quotes from the literary masters call out to her through voiceovers.

The film ends with a montage of scenes involving some protests with the police out in force. I suppose this would have echoed the feelings of those who did not agree with the film, some having to walk out before they get to the scene. A rare treat, but one that calls for an acquired taste to thoroughly enjoy.

A Real Trip

[Meganeguard · 8/10 · 27 January 2007]

From 1968 until the year 1971 Oshima Nagisa would direct five films that would not solidify his presence as the leader of the Japanese New Wave movement, but would also introduce this highly innovative filmmaker to Western countries, especially France and America. These films are Death by Hanging (1968), Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (1968), Boy (1969), The Man Who Left His Will on Film (1970), and Ceremonies (1971). Both Death by Hanging and Diary of a Shinjuku Thief originate from the same event: the Komatsugawa High School Murders.

In 1958 a young resident Korean named Ri Chin'u raped and killed two Japanese high school girls and as a result was executed in 1962. Ri drew the attention of a number of Japanese leftist intellectuals because of his vast intelligence and his correspondence with North Korean affiliated female journalist Bok Junan. Eventually a book of Ri and Bok's letters was published under the name Crime, Death, and Love. Because of his crimes Ri became the figurehead of a movement denouncing the Japanese Government's treatment of resident Koreans. In Death by Hanging entire sections of Ri and Bok's letters are included in the film and in Diary of a Shinjuku thief the protagonist Birdy Hilltop shares a common trait with Ri: they both steal books.

Much of the film's action takes place within the environs of the massive Kinokuniya bookstore in Shinjuku, a recent construct at the time this film was made. After seeing a bizarre display outside the bookstore, Birdy selects a few books to steal and makes his way out of the bookstore without paying. It seems that at first he is going to be able to make a clean break, but he is stopped by Suzuki Umeko, a young clerk at the bookstore who then takes him to the manager of the bookstore, in both the film and in reality: Tanabe Michio. However, instead of turning Birdy over to the police, Tanabe releases him and Birdy tells Umeko that he will return the nest day.

When the next day comes, Birdy returns to the bookstore and is once again caught by Umeko. This time around, instead of picking up books by French Writers, Birdy stole books of a much more sexual nature. Again Umeko takes Birdy to the manager who gives Birdy a copy of his book, it does not sell anyway, and gives the young couple money so that they can go out on a date.

As Birdy and Umeko leave the building, the viewer learns that Birdy gets his jollies from theft and that he almost climaxed when Umeko caught him. They then go to a fashion boutique in which Umeko steals an article of clothing of clothing so that she can experience the same feeling that Birdy had. It is after this point that the film gets truly odd.

One of Oshima's goals when he became a film director was to create films that could not be lumped into a genre and that would truly make the film viewer think about what he or she was watching. Whereas Death by Hanging dealt with discrimination and the death sentence, Diary of a Shinjuku Thief deals with sex and female-male interaction. One of the most interesting scenes in the film consists of a roundtable discussion filled with alcohol and cigarette smoke involving Watanabe Fumio, Toura Rokko, both playing themselves, but also playing other roles in the film, Sato Kei, and Oshima himself on the topic of sex and whether or now each member of the group had a fulfilling sex life and if the word "sex" meant the same to men and women.

Intermingling within the film are the Juro Karo Situation players an acting troupe who add an even more theatrical aspect to an already highly theatrical film. Juro Karo, who acts as a type of minstrel throughout the film, was determined to revive kabuki to its older form when it used to be performed by ruffians on a dry riverbed instead of the highly sanitized, aesthetic smorgasbord that it would later become.

While it might not be one of Oshima's most accessible films, Diary of a Shinjuku Thief is definitely an interesting ride and a must for those interested in Japanese New Wave films.

Now I can die happy

[nakkas · 15 September 2002]

Amazing! This Nouvelle Vague-influenced Japanese flick contains everything a regular cinephile could possibly want: avantguard kabuki theatre, sloshed japanese men discussing the sexual revolution and a guy chasing his girlfriend with a strap-on dildo through the streets of Tokio. Duh!