Black Sun (Kuroi Taiyo)
Directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara
Written Tesei Kono and Nobuo Yamada
1964/USA
Nikkatsu
First viewing/FilmStruck
[box] I’m a spade, you’re an ofay. Let’s play. – Louis Armstrong[/box]
This is just the kind of movie I hate. Some good jazz on the soundtrack though.
Young Japanese weirdo Akira is obsessed with jazz and all things African-American. He is squatting in a ruined Christian church which is about to be demolished surrounded by his many albums and pictures of black musicians. One day, a black GI, Gil, is fleeing the police after having killed another soldier with a machine gun. Badly wounded, he picks Akira’s digs to hide out in.
Things do not go well. Neither speaks the other’s language. And Gil badly disappoints his host by failing to play jazz or be interested in anything other than his own predicament. Things spin farther and farther out-of-control.
Well, at the least this gives you a glimpse into Japanese racial stereotypes. That is if you assume anything in this movie is rooted in reality. I think ithat might be an unsafe assumption. It’s like the director was given money and told he could do whatever he wanted. So he went wild and not in a good way. There is that gorgeous soundtrack though.
