Nanami: The Inferno of First Love

A seventeen-year-old apprentice works in a goldsmith's workshop and lives with something heavy carried out of his childhood. One day he meets Nanami, who models for painting studios. A closeness builds between them, but the boy's past gets in the way; loving and staying close are both difficult for him. The film takes place on the streets of Tokyo, in real locations. Susumu Hani came out of documentary and works here too with non-professional actors and a method close to improvisation. Shuji Terayama's name is on the screenplay; by Hani's own account Terayama found the synopsis already complete and lent his name for the pull it had with young audiences. The film competed for the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 1968. The telling does not explain the pain, it just stays beside it.