Summer Soldiers (film)

Summer Soldiers (サマー・ソルジャー, Samā sorujā) is a 1972 Japanese drama and anti-war film written by John Nathan and directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara. It follows U.S. army deserter Jim who tries to seek refuge in Japan during the Vietnam War.

Summer Soldiers
サマー・ソルジャー
Directed byHiroshi Teshigahara
Written byJohn Nathan
Produced byYukio Tomizawa
Starring
CinematographyHiroshi Teshigahara
Edited byFusako Shuzui
Music byToru Takemitsu
Production
company
Teshigahara Productions[1][2]
Release date
  • March 25, 1972 (1972-03-25) (Japan)
[1][2]
Running time
103[3]/129[1][2] minutes[lower-alpha 1]
LanguagesJapanese, English

Plot

G.I. Jim has deserted from the U.S. Army and is seeking refuge in Japan. While he constantly changes his hide-outs, Jim, who does not speak the language, is confronted with cultural differences, meeting average Japanese people, political radicals who want to use him for their purposes, and other deserters.

Cast

Production and release

Summer Soldiers was Teshigahara's first feature film in four years,[4] producing a script by American writer and translator John Nathan.[3] It was the first time that director Teshigahara photographed one of his films himself.[4] Summer Soldiers also marks the only time that Teshigahara's wife, actress Toshiko Kobayashi, starred in one of his films. Nathan later claimed that he directed the English-language scenes himself.[5]

The film premiered in Japan in March 1972[1][2] and was shown at the Cannes Film Festival[6] in May and the New York Film Festival[7] in October that year.

In 2002, Summer Soldiers was included in the DVD collection Teshigahara Hiroshi no sekai ("The world of Hiroshi Teshigahara").[8]

Reception

After its New York Film Festival screening, Vincent Canby of The New York Times described Summer Soldiers as "an intelligent, level-headed movie that refuses—bravely, I think—to deal in the sort of hysteria that denies the intention of other antiwar films".[7] Tony Rayns, writing for Time Out magazine, was critical of the script's "over-schematisation", but pointed out the film's strengths which he found in "a rigorous honesty about the psychology of desertion, a complete absence of sentimentality, and a meticulous naturalism in the settings and incidental details".[3]

In his compendium on Japanese film directors, film scholar Alexander Jacoby argued that Summer Soldiers "replaced the stylistic flamboyance of Teshigahara's sixties films with an informal, improvisational approach influenced by such independent filmmakers as John Cassavetes and Bob Rafelson".[9]

Notes
  1. The Time Out magazine review lists the film's running time with 103 minutes, which complies with the running time of the Japanese DVD release. 129 minutes is the length given by Kinenote and the Japanese Movie Database.

References
  1. "サマー・ソルジャー (Summer Soldiers)" (in Japanese). Kinenote. Retrieved 15 October 2021.
  2. "サマー・ソルジャー (Summer Soldiers)" (in Japanese). Japanese Movie Database. Retrieved 15 October 2021.
  3. Rayns, Tony (10 September 2012). "Summer Soldiers". Time Out. Retrieved 5 October 2021.
  4. Harper, Dan (May 2003). "Teshigahara, Hiroshi". Senses of Cinema.
  5. Nathan, John (2008). Living Carelessly in Tokyo and Elsewhere: A Memoir. Simon and Schuster. p. 288.
  6. "Quinzaine 1972 – La Quinzaine des Réalisateurs". Quinzaine-realisateurs.com (in French). Retrieved 16 October 2021.
  7. Canby, Vincent (2 October 1972). "Summer Soldiers' Studies War-Weary G.I. in Japan". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 October 2021.
  8. 勅使河原宏の世界, DVD Collection. – Teshigahara Hiroshi no sekai, DVD Collection. OCLC 64055592. Retrieved 16 October 2021 – via Worldcat.org.
  9. Jacoby, Alexander (2008). Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors: From the Silent Era to the Present Day. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press. p. 312. ISBN 978-1-933330-53-2.
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