Film/Video INFERNO OF FIRST LOVE (HATSUKOI JIGOKUHEN) DIRECTED BY SUSUMU HANI INTRODUCED BY CURATOR JAMES QUANDT SATURDAY, JANUARY 9, 1999, 7 PM $6 ($4 WALKER MEMBERS) AUDITORIUM

A key work of the Japanese New Wave, Hani's masterpiece focuses on two teenagers whose love is doomed by a society in which innocence is defiled, exploited, and destroyed. The boy has been rendered impotent by years of abuse by his adoptive father. His girlfriend is a former factory worker who attempts to find freedom by working as a "nude model." Like his New Wave compatriots (Oshima, Yoshida), Hani connects sex and rebellion, and explores the oppressive legacy of Japanese authoritarianism: the literal and metaphoric "sins of the father." The sequences involving the girl's sexual degradation are amongst the most powerful and disturbing in Japanese cinema. The screenplay was written with Shuji Terayama and the music is by Toru Takemitsu. Print courtesy The Japan Foundation. 1968, Japan, 107 minutes.