All Night Long (1992)

I didn't like Gus van Sant's Elephant, but maybe an unconsciously sadistic film like Elephant is still preferable to an openly sadistic film like this no-hope anthem from Japan (first in a series, amazingly enough). It takes the director exactly ten minutes and one shocking act of violence to paint Japanese society as one of the lower circles of Hell, which left me somewhat unenthused when he continues to bang on that one piano key for the remaining 80. Granted, I've seen and appreciated plenty of dark, nihilistic cinema, but those films either had a sense of humor as strong as my stomach (like Ichi the Killer or Funny Games) or at least had compelling thematic material that leavened the onscreen action somewhat (like Salo or In a Glass Cage). This film has nothing like that. It's merely a record of how life sucks and how everyone around you is out to get you and we're all animals at heart and there's no hope for redemption blah blah blah. It's wretchedly acted and poorly directed, but its ultimate downfall is not that it's deeply unpleasant but that it's also deeply pointless. Anyone who thinks this film says something profound about the human condition needs to get out more.

Grade: D-