4.6 Billion Years of Love2006XviD.CVP102.Miike

Directed by Takashi Miike

User Rating: 6.9/10 (265 votes)

http://imdb.com/title/tt0497876/

An unknown future. A boy confesses to the murder of another in an all-boy juvenile detention facility. More an exercise in style than storytelling, the story follows two detectives trying to uncover the case. Homosexual tension and explosive violence drives the story which delivers some weird and fascinating visuals.

from lunapark6.com:

Movie Review : Takeshi MiikeΓ??s adaptation of Maski AtoΓ??s homo-erotic manga Γ??Elegy for BoyΓ?? leaves most of MiikeΓ??s extremist tendencies where they belong - in the past - to create an utterly riveting original piece of cinema. The movieΓ??s set is staged in a theater like backdrop with mostly black lighting signifying walls and borders. The camera work is as rich as anything you have seen in a Miike film, while the content is just a fascinating puzzle that comes together like an M.C. Escher painting.

The movie begins with a bizarre prehistoric scene of an old man confiding to a boy to become a man by going down to the beach and meeting a man. That man is then shown ..tattooed and dancing like he is possessed. The movie then cuts to the main setting of the film, a prison, where Jun is shown hovering over the dead Shiro, still strangling his already lifeless body. Jun says repeatedly Γ??I Killed HimΓ?? and thus the mystery of what happened begins.

Takeshi Miike then makes remarkable use of non-linear flashbacks to weave an intricate tale of two lost souls that resonates on many different layers. The film is purposefully oblique with many jarring scenes of random images that may frustrate impatient viewers. Examples of some of the more mystifying images would be : Rocket ships, Pyramids, a recurring butterfly, a three-fold rainbow, and tattooΓ??s that appear on ShiroΓ??s body some of the times. Certain moments are also shown more than once with each recurrence revealing new insight into a scene that may have not been given as much importance otherwise. If you have the type of disposition were you need things presented in ABC order youΓ??re going to be extremely frustrated with Γ??Big Bang Love.Γ??

For me I thought the film was a wild visceral experience that impressed from start to finish. This was all the more surprising because I havenΓ??t had the same type of enthusiasm for MiikeΓ??s work in the past. Visually Γ??Big Bang LoveΓ?? looked amazing, colors having an over saturated look, while the theater like backdrop was striking. The cast was generally strong, though I found Ryuhei Matsuda to be the weak link in an otherwise strong cast. Ryuhei Matsuda played an effeminate Γ??asexualΓ?? character who drew the attention of most of his cellmates with his feminine looks. His performance largely seemed to be a rehash of his character from Γ??GohattoΓ?? and he carried the same brooding mannerisms that we have seen in many of his other films like Collage of Life and Nana. On the other hand, his main counterpart in the film Masanobu Ando impressed with a fiery performance . For people who enjoyed Γ??Battle Royale,Γ?? Matsanobu Ando did play the most ruthless of the kids in that movieΓ?ªthe kid that came back to Battle Royale for fun. Also, for fans of Takashi MiikeΓ??s Γ??Audition,Γ?? theyΓ??ll enjoy seeing Ryo Ishibashi make another compelling appearance, this time around as the unhinged prison warden.

What Γ??Big Bang LoveΓ?? tried to leave for the viewer is a difficult thing to quantify because, like an Etcher painting. people can can interpret those open-ended scenes in various different ways. With that said I viewed Γ??Big Bang LoveΓ?? as a meditative piece on repressed homosexual tendencies and its origins. From the opening scene with the young boy being told to become a man by going to the beach and meeting the tattooed man, to Jun standing next to Shiro during a strip search and Γ??envisioningΓ?? those same tattoos on Shiro, repressed homosexual urges was constant throughout the film. Although Jun and Shiro possessed a deep bond, Shiro ultimately denied any possible sexual relationships with Jun due to his affections for him. To dig further into why Shiro rebuffed any possible sexual relations with Jun a scene in the latter part of the film had Shiro saying Γ??I wonΓ??t because you want to go heaven. Γ??


In Japanese w/ optional English Subs

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