Shûji Terayama is easily one of Japanese cinema's most idiosyncratic auteurs. Much of Japan's modern avant-garde cinema, from late Suzuki to Tsukamoto to Miike owe a large debt to Terayama, but no one quite makes films like he did. Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets is a delirious and invigorating portrait of the life of a lower-class family in 1970s Japan. At least superficially. Much of the film breaks away from the plot (or what there is of a plot) to focus on politically and sexually charged comic vignettes. The main character, who just calls himself "Me", lives with his siste, who has an almost sexual attraction to her pet rabbit, his shoplifting grandmother, and unemployed deadbeat dad. His world is one of teen angst and rage. Sometimes he hangs around the locker room for the high school soccer team, and the coach even buys him a prostitute. Terayama's protagonist is the rebel without a cause of his era; he is angry at the system and spouts off about Marx and revolution, but with only a superficial understanding of what it all means. Terayama's direction reflects the chaotic world of his heroes, and his use of montage and punk rock anticipates the rise of the music video. But if there is one problem with the overall film it is that it feels like Terayama never quite imbued it with genuine emotion. This is not to say there are not scenes that stir the emotions, there are many, but it is very obvious that it is an experiment, we can see the strings being pulled, and I am not referring to Terayama's frequent breaking of the fourth wall, but rather that it is just a bit too detached. Additionally, the film could have been cut down by about twenty minutes to make for a tighter and more satisfying experience. But when one is dealing with art as radical and exciting as this, nitpicking is really thrown out the window, and in a way, less is not more.
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