Pastoral Hide and Seek

(Den-en ni shisu, Shûji Terayama, Japan 1974, 104 min., 35mm, Japanese w/subtitles)

Terayama. Terayama’s second feature is another take on the subject the director explored in his previous film, Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets. But in this case, the story is more personal—perhaps even autobiographical—as the boy who is desperately trying to escape his demanding, oppressive mother and the suffocating atmosphere of a small rural village ends up becoming a filmmaker. Filled with dreamlike images and underlined by sharp intellect in search of its own origins, this modernist poem is gradually becoming recognized as one of the quintessential Japanese films of the 1970s.