If you’re going to see one pig flick this year, make it “Pigs and Battleships.”
Shohei Imamura’s dramedy — about American warships that fill the harbor of a post-war Japanese town — is just one example of the acclaimed director’s portraits of the underbelly of Japanese society at BAMcinematek’s retrospective, “Pimps, Prostitutes and Pigs: Shohei Imamura’s Japan.”
The director, who died last year at 80, was lauded for his documentary-like films, which often exploded into a full-blown recreation of the anarchy in modern life. Imamura’s films are filled with murderers, thieves, adulteresses and pornographers; underdogs who are given a chance to display their genuine humanity.
“Pimps, Prostitutes and Pigs” isn’t only a fantastic title for a film series, it’s an apt one, too.
“Pimps, Prostitutes and Pigs: Shohei Imamura’s Japan” will be showing Mar. 3 through Mar. 29 at BAMcinematek (30 Lafayette Ave. at Ashland Place in Fort Greene). Tickets are $10; BAM Cinema Club members, seniors, students and children are $7. For information call (718) 636-4100 or visit www.bam.org.
