THE BOY CALLED THIRD BASE

Japan, 1978, 112 minutes, Colour.
Keigo Matsuyama, Shogo Matsuyama.
Directed by Yoichi Higoshi.

A contemporary Japanese story set in a training centre for boys condemned for various crimes. The film, while grim. has a certain optimism, especially in its presentation of institutions and their attempts to treat their inmates humanely. The problems are very much with the boys - although any imprisonment has an oppressive feeling about it. A contrast could be made with other films about prisons, especially the English prisons and the Borstals from The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner the very grim film made around the time of this one, Scum.

1. The title and its significance, the focus on the boy? Themes? Image, symbol? The realism of the story, the dreams of a young man and their souring?

2. The focus on contemporary Japan: school, cities, problems of youth, parents, sexuality, violence, the courts, prison? The point of view of the film - observations of society, critique?

3. The traditions of the prison film? This film and its western counterparts? American prison systems. British? New prisons? Modern and more comfortable, less degrading - yet prison? The arrival, the routine, the giving up of clothes and identity? The film's introduction to the various boys - explanation, nicknames, crimes? The
attention to detail in the life of the prison, morale? The personnel? Work, sport, meals? Baseball? Questions of sexuality - memories, loneliness, masturbation?

4. How well delineated the characters? The focus on Capital Third? His background, the reality of his life, his fantasies? His poetic insights? His opportunities in life?

5. The basic story of Third and his friend? At school. the girls, experimentation, procuring? Jealousy and protectiveness? The clients? The boredom and impatience? The outbreak of violence? A naive young man? The facts as the audience saw them - an interpreted by the courts? The debt to society?

6. The companion and his presence in prison. his crying, weakness? The fact that he was caught up in the earlier story? Justice?

7. Themes of escape, hope?

8. The detail of the portraiture? The reality of these human beings - symbolising ordinary human beings, prisoners?

9. The boy's mother, his background, life before going to prison? The stories told by the staff?

10. The final images and the young man and his continuing to run? A summary of all that had gone before?