New on DVD
Like some half-thought-out Japanese gutter-trash take on one of Celine’s midnight-express rides to hell, Masashi Yamamoto’s Carnival in the Night is a wallow in an urban hell that spins well out of control more times than should be legal in a feature film. It gathers up the excessive bile of its punk ethos and spits it right in the viewer’s face, but the effect is more likely to be bemusement (the occasional giggle, perhaps) than the desired shock and awe. Still, it’s something to behold, when all is said and done, a sociopathic spasming that goes further in plumbing the debilitated core of go-go capitalist Japan than most comparable Western underground filmmakers tend to dare. But, then, it was the ‘80s…
Carnival in the Night is now available at finer video stores everywhere. You can read the full review at PopMatters.
Chris Barsanti 