Death by Hanging / Japanese Summer: Double Suicide May 28, 2009

The spirit and energy of the 1960s preside over these two films.

Cited by many as among the most powerful films against capital punishment ever made, Death by Hanging is a brilliantly inventive black comedy about a Korean student, named only R., who's hanged for rape and murder but whose body refuses to die, thereby forcing panicked officials to "reconstruct" his identity and reestablish his guilt. (117 mins., 35mm)

One of Oshima's least known works, Japanese Summer: Double Suicide is an anarchic twist on the erotic situation of the title. The film sets a trio of neurotic outsiders—one androgynous, one paranoid, and one a misunderstood nymphomaniac—loose within what Oshima calls a world of "television, toys, and demons." (98 mins., 35mm)

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