Friday, March 06, 2009

4.6 Billion Years of Love


4.6 Billion Years of Love
[wiki, dreamlogic], aka Big Bang Love, Juvenile A (46億年の恋, 46 okunen no koi) is a Japanese film released in 2006, winning a number of awards, revolving around the story of two inmates in an all-male prison. It stars Matsuda Ryuhei, Ando Masanobu, Ishibashi Renji, and Ishibashi Ryo. The summary is as follows:

At the end of their vacant, destructive lives, two boys meet when they are both incarcerated for murder. With exactly opposite personalities, the two boys share only their instincts, but this is enough for them to discover the emotion of love. However, at the end of their love lies another murder, with one boy the accused and one the victim.

This movie is a mystery and a detective story with a dash of homosexual undertones all in one (though nothing's shown). It's also one of those movies where nothing's clear and it makes you think. The scenes are put together at seemingly random points, starting from where one man is caught "red handed" killing the other, and insists that he's the murderer. The rest of the movie follows the investigation, going through their respective personal histories and everything surrounding the murder up till the end, when the case is solved. What also makes this unique and artistic is the strange, yet fascinating effects that are used to move the movie along.

What's interesting is the message it leaves the audience with: we're all defined by our surroundings as well as the people around us and we're doomed to live up to that destiny. It's pretty powerful, yet beautiful at the same time. Even with the slightly graphic murder scenes, then again, I tend to like graphic things.

All in all, the movie was nicely done and even though my brain was a little clunky from just getting back from school, it was a nice exercise to piece together the movie. You can watch it here.

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