Japanese Avant-Garde Films Critique Urban Landscapes Through Violence in 1960s-70s Tokyo

In the late '60s and early '70s, three influential Japanese films tackled the theme of violence to comment on Tokyo's lifeless urban environment. These films are Wakamatsu Koji's Go, Go Second Time Virgin from 1969, Oshima Nagisa's The Man Who Left His Will on Film from 1970, and Terayama Shuji's Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets from 1971. They connect with Matsuda Masao's "Theory of Landscape," which posits that our surroundings mirror the political dynamics at play. Through their portrayal of violence, these films reveal the alienation present in Tokyo’s modern structures and critically examine the underlying violence in the city's landscape. The article analyzes these works in relation to Landscape Theory.