Blue Spring

Colour, 35mm
Japan, 2001, 83 min
Section: Another View

Synopsis

This coarsely poetic tale set in a “typical” suburban secondary school was inspired by comic strips written during the years 1990-1993 by Taiyo Matsumoto. It tells the story of a wild group of schoolboys in their last year who play a highly dangerous game on the roof of their school. The leader of the gang, who brutally torments his fellow-pupils and drives his helpless teacher to the edge of despair, is the cynical hooligan Kujo – the winner of a competition to see how many times they can clap their hands between letting go of the roof railing and catching hold of it again. The younger boy Aoki is full of admiration for Kujo and tries to go one better, which only leads to tragedy. The gang’s aggression intensifies, but evidently only because they see it as their way out of a tedious life lacking in worthwhile activities. This fact is also borne out by the heroes’ slightly absurd friendship with a dwarfish gardener and their serious interest in turning their empty, grey world green again.

About the director

Toshiaki Toyoda (b. 1969, Osaka) played shogi (Japanese chess) professionally between the ages of nine and seventeen. He worked as a screenwriter on the film Checkmate (1991, dir. Junji Sakamoto) and has also co-written another of Sakamoto’s films Biliken (1996). He wrote and directed a drama set in the streets of Tokyo Pornostar (1998), which received a number of awards. He then filmed a documentary portrait of four young boxers, Unchain (2000), and the feature Blue Spring (2001), inspired by a popular comic strip which Taiyo Matsumoto based on his own experiences larking about with older boys at his secondary school.