| Chris Polley |
School in the Crosshairs plays at the Trylon Cinema from Sunday, November 23rd, through Tuesday, November 25th. For tickets, showtimes, and other series information, visit trylon.org.
“Sometimes this place feels like a prison” is a sentiment I hear at least once every few years as a public school teacher—from students, yes, but also at least twice from fellow teachers. It’s also a haven for many kids who lack stability and routine at home. And yet it remains a source of so much stress and so many dead ends for all involved, and so its systemic issues (like anywhere else in even a quasi-functioning society such as the one we are currently living in and have for time immemorial) are glaringly obvious to even the developing minds educators are tasked with sparking, molding, and inspiring. By its very nature, though, school is inherently suffocating, something absurdly antithetical to the youthful spirit of freedom and rebellion. House auteur Nobuhiko Ôbayashi knew this acutely, and one of his most underrated achievements is in the joyous cinematic revolt School in the Crosshairs.
“As Americans question the competence of their high school graduates, 9 out of 10 Japanese teen-agers leave high school with a diploma that assures potential employers that they possess fundamental reading and calculating skills,” wrote Edward B. Fiske for the New York Times in 1983. A more compassionate analysis of this statistic circa the time of release for Ôbayashi’s paean to individualism and (somewhat ironically) collective action is that Ôbayashi’s homeland put undue pressure on children to be in constant fear of their professional future, and his first “idol film” (the first of multiple collaborations with actress and singer Hiroko Yakushimaru) was a refutation of and cautionary tale for this simmering societal crucible. Yakushimaru’s Yuka and Ryoichi Takayanagi’s Koji are two ends of a spectrum: the former a high-achieving academic, the latter a low-achieving athlete. A mysterious invading force enrolls at their high school in the form of Masami Hasegawa’s emotionless and rigid Michiru, who quickly starts an SS-esque “patrol” as a means of cracking down on frivolities and laziness that keep the student body from achieving high marks on exams.
With the help of some particularly doe-eyed performances plus his trademark kinetic style, Ôbayashi immediately creates an environment for his characters that gets the viewer nestled in and rooting for some kind of cosmic comeuppance. Yuka has telekinetic powers, but she tries not to use them for fear of inequity among her peers as well as unwanted attention on her. Conversely, while Michiru has a similar gift, she has no humility or concerns about anything other than brainwashing her peers for what appears to be a kind of communal strength but turns out to be simply in service of an alien master with the intent of domination over humanity. Ôbayashi biographer Max Robinson emphasizes on the commentary track for the Cult Epics Blu-ray release of the film “how much sympathy and care the great director has for the young.” This comes through in crystallized form in Crosshairs, as the messiness and insecurity felt by adolescents resonates loudly without ever feeling forced or inauthentic. It’s a teen drama with over-the-top sci-fi elements that nevertheless feels more grounded than the typical American rom-com from the late 90s.
Part of this is surely the unique circumstances in which Ôbayashi himself grew up—old enough to see first-hand the devastation caused by World War II but also young enough to let the intergenerational trauma inform his work on a purely visceral basis. “This context would go on to greatly inform much of his work, with his films often exploring innocence and growth amidst an approaching destructive force of some sort—one that is usually acknowledged, but only ever vaguely understood by his characters,” writes Hal Young for Senses of Cinema. In the film, Koji dreams of being a Kendo martial arts master, but he also quietly admires Yuka’s deep earnestness and lack of concern for living up to anyone else’s expectations but her own. He feels at once stuck in a constant loop of needing to perform but also constantly wanting to be his own person.
Likewise, Crosshairs treats its adult characters with nuanced consideration, even if they also serve as caricature counterparts for the teens. Fumi Dan’s Nurse is distant from her students but also their most vibrant champion, and gym teacher Yamagata (played with simultaneous aloofness and righteousness by Koichi Miura) advocates for his students’ right to balance their studies with physical exercise while also speaking in an unhinged manner in the staff lounge. The mismatch in tone is admittedly as alarming as it is curious, which only adds to the cacophony of storytelling and visual effects. As Tom Wilmot writes for Asian Movie Pulse, “While undoubtedly crude, the over-abundance of blue-screen is an artistic choice that will either rip you out of the film or plunge you deeper into cinematic euphoria.” It’s certainly a bold choice, and, similar to House, it feels out of left field one moment and a singular artistic statement in the next.
Ultimately, Yuka and her classmates not only fight to remove the interlopers, but to return to the status quo of their school and community. Paul Roquet goes on to point out for Midnight Eye in 2009 that “this coincides with a coming-of-age moment in the characters’ personal lives, so that giving up the ability to play with time and space becomes equated with growing up, moving from youth into responsible adulthood.” But the fact remains that Ôbayashi has little regard for the kind of empty-headed cram sessions that strip a child of both their playfulness and their identity in favor of mass conformity. This isn’t the kind of “back-to-normal” reset ending reserved for multi-cam sitcoms or detective series; this is a clarion call for adults everywhere who want to call themselves grown up without admitting that their childlike qualities still reside within, even if they’re tempered now. This is a reminder that the power of youth may be dormant but can be awoken at any moment.
In fact, this is the kind of transgressive narrative that manages to elude easy commentary from all angles—because friendship and working together remain where a more capitalist premise might suggest that it’s every person for themselves, with Yuka or Koji alone at the end or romantically interlinked as a single unit. As Hayley Scanlon points out in her write-up for Windows on Worlds, though, “Yuka claims her right to self-determination but is determined not to leave any of her friends behind.” For a film that dazzles with eccentricity and showcases the visionary qualities of one of cinema’s most notoriously inscrutable aesthetes, as well as a quite literal highlight reel for a teen idol, it sure does heavily suggest that perhaps the most vital aspect of what keeps the Nazis at bay is, well, true community that uplifts and celebrates its people rather than homogenizing and weaponizing them.
Edited by Olga Tchepikova-Treon