Kritiken

...A staggering cut from the lovers' heated physical exchange to a churning cement mixer is bit a defiant one-finger salute to the Ozu-style pillow shot and an adept metaphor for the distance between these doomed ravers and the new Japan being built for apartment-dwelling salarymen.

An uneven but deeply essential film that oscillates between some of the most gorgeous modernist compositions in film history and a conflicted view of Japanese youth culture.

But while the colors in Cruel Story of Youth may not be as lurid as I recall, this DCP is pretty dazzling as restorations go, and the "film" still packs a punch... As it did when I first saw it, the final shot remains a powerful, heartbreaking sign of the romantic despair barely masked by Oshima's groundbreaking modernism.