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“Imamura's first genuine masterpiece” according to Japanese cinema authority David Desser. When it finally was released in New York in the Eighties, PIGS AND BATTLESHIPS ended up on many critics' ten best lists of the year. (It was one of Susan Sontag's favourite films, and she frequently selected it for her Cartes Blanches.) PIGS focuses on a young woman determined not to become a prostitute, the easiest way to make a living with the “battleships” of the US navy parked in the Yokusaka bay, and her weak-willed punk boyfriend. Imamura's eye-popping panorama is full of corrosive jokes and keeps its Scope frame buzzing and bustling with crane and tracking shots, aggressive compositions, and escalating strangeness. The finale, featuring a stampede of pigs through the narrow streets of Yokusuka, has to be seen to be believed. “An expansive, loopy film of extravagant set pieces and distinctive dark humour” (J. Hoberman, The Village Voice ).
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