"Rockers" - Jinnai Takinori - Japan - 2003

 

African Jim - Donald Swanson - 1951
The Singing Thief - Chang Cheh - 1969
Leadbelly - Gordon Parks Sr - 1976
Wild Zero - Takeuchi Tetsuro - 1999
25 Watts - Juan Pablo Rebella et Pablo Stoll - 2001
Rockers - Takanori Jinnai - 2003

 

CONTINENT B : ROCK'N ROLL !

This retrospective has two themes. On the one hand, it deals with one of the major music movements of the last few decades. On the other hand, it offers films belonging to a genre which has always been included in the Festival since its inception (such as Japanese soft porn to Chinese sword film to Brazilian rumberas).

Such a dual approach may sound like an arbitrary one. Yet a certain form of Rock'n'Roll (not the worst one) and a particular film genre have something in common - superficiality, naivety and the capacity to generate identification. This is the main thread in our programme.

A number of films were left out, such as the many Catholicism-oriented remakes of "Rebel Without a Cause" made in Mexico (even those featuring Bill Haley, as in "Jovenes y rebeldes"); 1960s Japanese vehicles for pop groups such as the Spiders or the Jaguars; films which favour serious messages as in the Chinese "Beijing Rocks" or the Korean Looking for Bruce Lee... We even dismissed Japanese film-maker Miike's "The Harp Blues" and focused instead on some sort of innocence.

Through very different music and film genres, what we searched for was after all something as sentimental, immediate and sophisticated a simple song.