Pink Ribbon

In 1995, the Rotterdam Film Festival dedicated a special programme to a rarity among film genres known as ‘pink eiga’. These dirt-cheap, independent, soft-core sex films are still being produced in Japan – on 35mm and for screening in cinemas – even though the number of productions has declined in recent years and distributors are forced to re-release films 10 years later with a new title and a new poster. Many now-famous directors once made such ‘pink films’ and they still provide a breeding ground for new talent. Documentary maker Fujii manages to provide a beautiful survey of the genre, brimming with anecdotes and interviews. For instance, we see Kurosawa Kiyoshi, who made it abroad for the first time with Cure (1998), complaining about his erotic comedy film The Excitement of the Do-Re-Mi-Fa Girl (1985), veteran Wakamatsu Koji, who has pleasant memories of his pink films, and ex-terrorist Adachi Masao, who spent 28 years with Palestinian guerrillas in Lebanon after a successful career as a pink director. But of course the main dish is a selection of clips revealing that pink film was probably better back then than it is these days, and that the times when the pink industry was a training ground for serious authors may well be gone for good. (GT)